Lifeboat Foundation

Drawing a roadmap to combat the spread of deserts worldwide. It’s the mission of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in the Inner Mongolian city of Erdos. The host country, China, was praised for a law it passed in 2002 — the world’s first integrated law dedicated to combating desert expansion. With this goal in mind, China has carried out several projects that have been successful, including at one desert in northern China. CGTN’s Frances Kuo reports.

Very recently, the World Health Organization, which is essentially the United Nations’ agency for coordinating international health-related efforts, has launched The Global Online Consultation on Research Priority Setting for Healthy Aging. A corresponding survey is available on the WHO website and can be filled until September 30. As WHO is the main source of policy recommendations for the UN member states, its position can significantly influence the allocation of state funding to different areas of scientific research.

This is why we at LEAF urge you to step in and fill out the WHO survey; our community needs to demand more focused efforts to understand the basic mechanisms of aging, to develop innovative therapies to address these mechanisms, and to remove the barriers delaying the implementation of rejuvenation technologies into clinical practice.

Summary: Without DNA repair, the damage in our genome builds up, which in turn causes disease and aging. Repairing DNA damage is one of the holy grails of anti-aging medicine. As a review earlier this month shows, scientists have made headway in understanding our DNA repair mechanisms. While researchers haven’t found a way to repair DNA damage, they have found potential ways to mitigate some of its effects.

For those us wanting to live in good health to the age of 120, the damaged DNA in our bodies is keeping us from reaching our goal.

Research has shown that our DNA repair mechanisms decline as we get older. Unless we are lucky to be among the tiny percentage of centenarians who are blessed with superb DNA repair mechanisms, the odds are that unrepaired DNA damage will strike us down with chronic diseases before we reach our goal.

Continue reading “How Our Damaged DNA Kills Us” »

The jagged geological ridges, found at the highest elevations located close to Pluto’s equator, soar hundreds of feet into the sky and are as high as some of the tallest skyscrapers on Earth.

According to an article in the latest issue of planetary science journal, Icarus, the colossal “ice-scrapers” observed on Pluto’s surface are vestiges from the last Ice Age that occurred on the dwarf planet millions of years ago.

Scientists believe that the “ice blades” are the result of solid methane evaporation that formed the towers of ice on the mountain peaks along Chile’s Chajnantor plain.

Continue reading “Pluto’s Gargantuan Glacial ‘Skyscrapers’ Reveal Their Secrets” »

Only two years ago, when I launched my advocacy website Rejuvenaction, I didn’t think I would read a book like Juvenescence so soon; yet, the topic of rejuvenation biotechnologies has already become mainstream enough to lead investors of the calibre of Jim Mellon and Al Chalabi to devote a whole book to it.

As Juvenescence is a book aimed at potential new investors in rejuvenation biotechnologies, I expected it to be an extremely technical and detailed account of things I don’t understand, such as finance, markets, and funds. To my delight, this was not the case. Rather, the details Juvenescence dives into are primarily those of the emerging field of rejuvenation science (alas, still something whose details I don’t fully understand).

The book explains the paradigm shift that is currently taking place and changing the way science sees aging—no longer as an inevitable fact of life but rather as a disease to be eradicated like any other—and goes through a biology 101 crash course for the benefit of readers who might be not too well versed in the science of life.

Interesting story in The Guardian today. Quotes from multiple transhumanists, including myself:

Intranet service? Check. Autonomous motorcycle? Check. Driverless car technology? Check. Obviously the next logical project for a successful Silicon Valley engineer is to set up an AI-worshipping religious organization.

Anthony Levandowski, who is at the center of a legal battle between Uber and Google’s Waymo, has established a nonprofit religious corporation called Way of the Future, according to state filings first uncovered by Wired’s Backchannel. Way of the Future’s startling mission: “To develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the Godhead contribute to the betterment of society.”

Continue reading “Deus ex machina: former Google engineer is developing an AI god” »

Intel has unveiled a new, specialized compute core designed for AI, deep learning, and neural networks. Meet Loihi.

The human brain is used as a comparison for how computer’s function. But, honestly, computers are nothing like human brains. Not yet, at least.

That could change as researchers have developed computing technology that uses light to mimic the functionality of a nerve’s synapse, opening the way for hardware that combines the speed of modern processors with the efficiency of brainpower.

Brains and computers are both systems that can model, manipulate, and store information. From there, they don’t tend to have all that much in common.

Continue reading “Researchers Have Developed Microchips That Behave Like Brain Cells” »

A Chinese team corrected the potentially fatal blood disorder beta-thalassemia.