Lifeboat Foundation

Three score and ten is so 1970s. Today, the average baby born in the UK will live long enough to see the beginning of the 22nd century. Increasingly we also hear claims of longevity breakthroughs that could propel those children – and maybe even their parents – into triple digits and beyond. Is eternal life something we want outside of science fiction? And how will society cope if it is?

“The first ten million years were the worst,” said Marvin. “The second ten million years, they were the worst, too. The third ten million years I didn’t enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.”

So opines Marvin, Douglas Adams’ paranoid android, who follows the protagonists of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ around like a bumbling, grumbling storm cloud. Functionally immortal (and cursed with a “brain the size of a planet”), Marvin is the hubristic dream of eternal life printed and stamped in circuitry. While his human shipmates stumble from one disaster to another, devoting their limited talents to avoiding death at all costs, Marvin plods glumly along, bemoaning the pointlessness of an infinite existence in which there is nothing new to learn, no challenge to his intellect and in which everyone – even his closest friend, a rat that nested for a time in his foot – dies. Except him.

Researchers have found a way to decode neural signals and transform them back into movement and touch sensation for paralyzed patients.

Via Harvard David Sinclair “You may have seen this chart in my last newsletter, but it’s believed a bats’ ability to keep their inflammatory response down is one of the reasons they are able to harbor many types of viruses. Most coronavirus-related deaths in humans are due to the immune system response in the body going haywire in its response, not damage caused by the virus itself.

Part 2: https://buff.ly/2VuHGTx”

You may have seen this chart in my last newsletter, but it’s believed a bats’ ability to keep their inflammatory response down is one of the reasons they are able to harbor many types of viruses. Most coronavirus-related deaths in humans are due to the immune system response in the body going haywire in its response, not damage caused by the virus itself.

Continue reading “You may have seen this chart in my last newsletter” »

Treating COVID-19 patents with hydroxychloroquine, a derivative of chloroquine generally thought to have less severe side effects, has become standard at many hospitals. The drug is often combined with the antibiotic azithromycin, which some studies suggest also has antiviral effects. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized emergency use of both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients. But no large, randomized trial has proved these drugs—alone or in combination with azithromycin—are effective against the disease.

Cardiologists urge careful monitoring of patients on chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine.

A faster way of testing for coronavirus was implemented at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, which allows for the test results to be retrieved in under 90 minutes, Channel 12reported. “It is an advanced and reliable technology that gives hospitals the opportunity to get the result back from a coronavirus test in fewer than 90 minutes,” Dr. Hanoh Goldschmidt, head of the Laboratory Department in Ichilov Hospital told Channel 12.

The Oxford scientists are extraordinarily confident that their vaccine against the coronavirus will work.

The government’s chief medical officer insists a jab is still 12 to 18 months off and some form of social distancing will be needed until it’s in widespread use.

Their confidence is built on past success. The same vaccine technology has been used on other diseases, including the related coronavirus MERS, as well as Ebola.

Continue reading “Coronavirus: Why Oxford university is so confident in an early vaccine win” »

It’s the best explanation for their bizarre orbits.

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The SpaceX and Tesla CEO made the announcement of two beta tests — one public and one private — on Twitter Wednesday night.