Lifeboat Foundation

Every 100 years or so, our Sun gives off a great big belch that sends an intense wave of charged particles towards Earth. This wasn’t a problem in the past, but our high-tech civilization is now disturbingly vulnerable to these solar storms. A new study quantifies the economic risks posed by these extreme solar storms, while also proposing a super-futuristic solution to the problem: an Earth-sized shield built in outer space.

The term “solar storm” is used to identify the various nasties the Sun can hurl our way, including x-rays, charged particles, and magnetized plasma. In 1859, a series of powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) hit our planet head on, disrupting telegraph stations and causing widespread communication outages. If we were to be hit by an equally powerful solar storm today, it would knock out satellites and electrical grids, disrupting global communications, transportation, and supply chains. Total worldwide losses could reach up to $10 trillion, with recovery taking many years.

By treating one of the root causes of aging – senescent cells – a new class of drugs, known as senolytics, has the potential to treat a wide range of age-related diseases rather than the traditional approach of dealing with them one at a time.

Today we are going to take a look at what senescent cells are, how they contribute to age-related diseases and a new review by the Mayo Clinic that shows what we can do about this problem. We all age, but the research suggests that we may not have to suffer from age-related ill health.

A great initiative by Laura Katrin Weston one of our amazing volunteers. She is supporting research fundraising using the wonderful artwork she produces at Black Cat Studios.

Black Cat Studios is a small private recording, music production and art studio in Leicestershire, UK, providing a range of services for musicians, broadcasters, and game developers. It is really great to see the community starting to use their talents and passions outside of longevity to help support research. All proceeds will go to Lifespan.io and we will use them to support cutting-edge medical research projects such as MouseAge.

Laura will be producing artwork based on 31 themes all with a longevity or transhumanist flavor to them based on this list:

Leading women’s magazine Marie Claire has a feature story on life extension out this month (approx 1.5 million circulation):

Forget about life after death. More and more, women around the country are seeking another kind of miracle: not dying at all.

What if you could hit the pause button on aging? Live to 120 without feeling a day over 80? More radical still, what if you could cheat death? Would you do it?

Continue reading “Meet the Extensionists: People Who Believe Immortality Is Possible” »

To coincide with our initiatives for Longevity Month, we are happy to announce some exciting updates for the MouseAge campaign to create a visual biomarker for mouse aging and speed the pace of longevity-focused mouse trials.

This year we want to continue this tradition by doing something special, making a video to showcase you, our community, as it is only with your outstanding help that we have been able to accomplish so much in such a short period of time.

To learn more visit our website today: https://www.leafscience.org/longevity-month-2017-tell-us-your-story/

“Facebook has grown so big, and become so totalizing, that we can’t really grasp it all at once. Like a four-dimensional object, we catch slices of it when it passes through the three-dimensional world we recognize. In one context, it looks and acts like a television broadcaster, but in this other context, an NGO.”

- “Not even Zuckerberg himself seemed prepared for the role Facebook has played in global politics this past year.”

- “In which case, how can we be assured that Facebook is really safeguarding democracy for us and that it’s not us who need to be safeguarding democracy against Facebook?”

Continue reading “Does Even Mark Zuckerberg Know What Facebook Is?” »

While innovations in information technology have transformed how people live, work, and connect, the IT industry’s growth pattern has contributed to a widening gap between rich and poor. Addressing it will require new taxation schemes and modernization of antitrust legislation.

Read more