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New story about the recent book on #transhumanism To Be a Machine:

For the (very very quickly) upcoming Love & Death Issue, I had the chance to interview the journalist, Mark O’Connell, who is the author most recently of To Be A Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death. He also wrote that amazing piece in the New York Times Magazine a few months ago about Zoltan Istvan, the transhumanist who ran for president and drove across the country in a coffin-shaped bus. O’Connell’s new book reads like a travelogue among characters like Zoltan, futuristic types (mostly from California) that O’Connell describes with a charming blend of cynicism and aloof interest. Like an agnostic amidst a group of “true believers,” O’Connell is both repelled by and drawn in by the belief system that transhumanism proffers.

If you’re unfamiliar, transhumanism is the movement that asserts an immortal future thanks to technology and science. As O’Connell describes it, it is the technological teleology of salvation: “a projection whereby intelligent life takes over all matter in the universe, leading to a cosmological singularity.” In other words, the computers we’ve built, the science we’re discovering, will free us from our mortal coil, our bodies. We will live eternally in new bodies, machines unconstrained by sickness, vulnerability and death.

Continue reading “The New Gnosticism of the Transhumanists” | >

You may not be familiar with the work we do at Lifespan.io and how we are supporting rejuvenation biotech research using the power of crowdfunding. Here is a short video talking about the importance of supporting breakthrough technology and the work we do at Lifespan.io.

Connect with us on social media to stay informed:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LifespanIO?sub_confirmation=1

Continue reading “LEAF President Keith Comito explains the origin of Lifespan.io and why crowdfunding research to extend healthy lifespan is both important and exciting” | >

Juergen Schmidhuber is the father of Deep learning Artificial Intelligence.

Since age 15 or so, the main goal of professor Jürgen Schmidhuber has been to build a self-improving Artificial Intelligence (AI) smarter than himself, then retire. His lab’s Deep Learning Neural Networks (NNs) (since 1991) and Long Short-Term Memory have transformed machine learning and AI, Deep Learning since 1991 – Winning Contests in Pattern Recognition and Sequence Learning Through Fast and Deep / Recurrent Neural Networks and are now (2017) available to billions of users through the world’s most valuable public companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. In 2011, his team was the first to win official computer vision contests through deep NNs, with superhuman performance. His research group also established the field of mathematically rigorous universal AI and recursive self-improvement in universal problem solvers that learn to learn (since 1987).

He predicts trillions of AI in the 2050s will mine and develop the asteroids.

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Elon Musk’s paper on, available for free below.

This paper is a summary of Elon Musk’s presentation at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, September 26–30, 2016. In February 2017, SpaceX announced it will launch a crewed mission beyond the moon for two private customers in late 2018.

Used with permission from SpaceX.

By talking about the SpaceX Mars architecture, I want to make Mars seem possible—make it seem as though it is something that we can do in our lifetime. There really is a way that anyone could go if they wanted to.

Continue reading “Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species” | >

Sinclair lab enters human trials for DNA repair this year!

DNA is a critical part of the cell, it is the instruction manual for building cells. Whilst DNA is well protected within the cell nucleus damage does occur, therefore DNA repair is absolutely essential for cell function, cell survival and the prevention of cancer. The good news is cells are able to repair damaged DNA but the bad news is that this ability declines with aging for reasons as yet to be fully understood.

An exciting new study by researchers led by Dr. David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School shows a part of the process that enables cells to repair damaged DNA involving the signalling molecule NAD. This offers insight into how the body repairs DNA and why that repair system declines as we age. Before we get into the new research study let’s take a look at how DNA damage relates to aging and what NAD is.

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Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun, but closer to home scientists are trying to develop fusion reactors that could provide immense amounts of energy. These reactors are big and (currently) inefficient, but a NASA-funded startup called Princeton Satellite Systems is working on a small-scale fusion reactor that could power advanced fusion rockets. Suddenly, other planets and even other star systems could be in reach.

All the forms of rocket propulsion we currently have involve accelerating propellant out of a nozzle. Then, physics takes over and the vessel moves in the opposite direction. Most spacecraft use chemical propulsion, which provides a large amount of thrust over a relatively short period of time. Some missions have been equipped with ion drives, which use electrical currents to accelerate propellant. These engines are very efficient, but they have low thrust and require a lot of power. A fusion rocket might offer the best mix of capabilities.

Current nuclear reactors use fission to generate energy; large atomic nuclei are broken apart and some of that mass is transformed into energy. Fusion is the opposite. Small atomic nuclei are fused together, causing some mass to be converted into energy. This is what powers stars, but we’ve had trouble producing the necessary temperatures and pressure on Earth to get net positive energy generation.

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Organs-on-Chips (Organ Chips) are emerging as powerful tools that allow researchers to study the physiology of human organs and tissues in ways not possible before. By mimicking normal blood flow, the mechanical microenvironment, and how different tissues physically interface with one another in living organs, they offer a more systematic approach to testing drugs than other in vitro methods that ultimately could help to replace animal testing.

As it can take weeks to grow human cells into intact differentiated and functional tissues within Organ Chips, such as those that mimic the lung and intestine, and researchers seek to understand how drugs, toxins or other perturbations alter tissue structure and function, the team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering led by Donald Ingber has been searching for ways to non-invasively monitor the health and maturity of cells cultured within these microfluidic devices over extended times.

It has been particularly difficult to measure changes in electrical functions of cells grown within Organ Chips that are normally electrically active, such as neuronal cells in the brain or beating heart cells, both during their differentiation and in response to drugs.

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