Posted in computing, engineering, habitats
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Humanity is made of individuals; preserving the life of individuals preserves humanity. Thus, life extension and the preservation of our species aren’t incompatible.
What is it that really matters: preserving individual lives or preserving humanity? Is it more important to grant individuals the option to live as long as they’d like in good health, or is it more important to ensure the preservation of our species? This sort of question isn’t unheard of in the context of discussions of pros and cons of rejuvenation biotechnology; at times, when presented with the possibility of indefinite lifespans, some people reply that focusing on the preservation of our species is more important. This observation is reminiscent of the “other priorities” objection, and one could respond to it in the same way. However, this issue is also worth examining from other angles.
Quick comeback: the two goals aren’t incompatible
A practical remark to make here is that preserving individual lives automatically preserves the human species because the species only exists as long as there are humans. Not everyone agrees that having a population of individuals that live indefinitely is “good for the species”—be it for fear of overpopulation or of cultural stagnation—but this concept is rather vaguely defined and not objectively measurable. However, here we are stepping into a different territory, one that has been explored in other articles, so we won’t go there in this one.
Companies like Eli Lilly & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC are investing in automation with the hope of transforming drug discovery from an enterprise where humans do manual experiments to one where robots handle thousands of samples around the clock. This automation will be key to developing better therapies more efficiently, drug companies say, as research and development becomes more labor intensive amid the push toward more-tailored…
Posted in futurism
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For the June edition of Journal Club, we will be taking a look at the recent paper entitled “Changes at the nuclear lamina alter binding of pioneer factor Foxa2 in aged liver”.
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https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acel.12742
Eating foods high in salt is known to contribute to high blood pressure, but does that linear relationship extend to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death? Recent cohort studies have contested that relationship, but a new study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and their colleagues using multiple measurements confirms it. The study suggests that an inaccurate way of estimating sodium intake may help account for the paradoxical findings of others.
“Sodium is notoriously hard to measure,” said Nancy Cook, ScD, a biostatistician in the Department of Medicine at BWH. “Sodium is hidden—you often don’t know how much of it you’re eating, which makes it hard to estimate how much a person has consumed from a dietary questionnaire. Sodium excretions are the best measure, but there are many ways of collecting those. In our work, we used multiple measures to get a more accurate picture.”
Sodium intake can be measured using a spot test to determine how much salt has been excreted in a person’s urine sample. However, sodium levels in urine can fluctuate throughout the day so an accurate measure of a person’s sodium intake on a given day requires a full 24-hour sample. In addition, sodium consumption may change from day to day, meaning that the best way to get a full picture of sodium intake is to take samples on multiple days.
Only 35 per cent of five- to 17-year-olds and 62 per cent of children ages 3 and 4 are getting the recommended physical-activity levels for their age group (Editor’s note: around 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily, including vigorous-intensity activity on at least 3 days per week) and that this may be having an impact on the health of their brains.
___ Getting kids outside and active could help with brain health: Participaction report (The Globe and Mail): The physical benefits of kids leading an active lifestyle, including better heart heal…
The danger, some experts warn, is that A.I. will run into a technical wall and eventually face a popular backlash — a familiar pattern in artificial intelligence since that term was coined in the 1950s. With deep learning in particular, researchers said, the concerns are being fueled by the technology’s limits.
A branch of A.I. called deep learning has transformed computer performance in tasks like vision and speech. But meaning, reasoning and common sense remain elusive.
