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Nov 5, 2019

David Pearce — Experience Machines and Hedonic Treadmills

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, ethics, virtual reality

“…consider Robert Nozick’s thought-experiment in conjunction with Felipe De Brigard’s inverse experience machine argument: “If you like it, does it matter if it’s real?”


Does Nozick’s experience machine prove anything?

Continue reading “David Pearce — Experience Machines and Hedonic Treadmills” »

Nov 5, 2019

Tesla Model 3 Performance gets stunning street-legal racing treatment from Unplugged

Posted by in categories: law, sustainability, transportation

“Unplugged Performance thoroughly reworks the suspension with a custom race valved adjustable coilover suspension kit, along with billet adjustable front upper control arms, billet adjustable rear camber and toe arms and a beefier 3 way adjustable front/rear sway bar set with uprated bushings. The highly adjustable suspension and handling capabilities pair with massive 6 piston 15.5” uprated brakes and competition brake pads. Unplugged Performance 20” wheels shod with Michelin Cup 2 tires are then fitted. The wheels are custom machined out of 6061-T6 billet APP forgings, the same forgings used by Koenigsegg and Lamborghini, and every set is FEA optimized and specifically engineered to the specific build’s desired spec and use. Wheel weights range from 19.6–21.0lbs in 20” with tire sizings up to 305mm wide.”


While Tesla is working on a track-focused Model S, the Model 3 Performance is getting its own street-legal racing treatment from Unplugged Performance.

Continue reading “Tesla Model 3 Performance gets stunning street-legal racing treatment from Unplugged” »

Nov 5, 2019

‘Alien Megastructure’ Star May Not Be So Special After All

Posted by in category: alien life

I think this is real but some say it isn’t.


A mysterious star whose repeated bouts of darkening might be due to “alien megastructures,” according to some researchers’ conjectures, may now have more than a dozen counterparts that display similarly mystifying behavior, a new study finds.

Further research into all of these stars might help solve the puzzle of their bewildering flickering, the study’s author said.

Continue reading “‘Alien Megastructure’ Star May Not Be So Special After All” »

Nov 5, 2019

What if We Nuke a City?

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, existential risks, military

Learn more about nuclear weapons and what you can do to stop them.
EN: http://www.notonukes.org
FR: http://www.sansarmesnucleaires.org
ES: http://www.nomasarmasnucleares.org
PT: http://www.fimdasarmasnucleares.org
DE: http://www.neinzuatomwaffen.org
AR: http://www.notonukes.org/ar
RU: http://www.notonukes.org/ru
CH: http://www.notonukes.org/zh

Spread the word and use the following Hashtags:
EN: #nuclearban FR: #nuclearban
ES: #nomasarmasnucleares
PT: #fimdasarmasnucleares

Continue reading “What if We Nuke a City?” »

Nov 4, 2019

Russia just brought in a law to try to disconnect its internet from the rest of the world

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, internet, law

It’s been called an online Iron Curtain.

On Friday, a controversial law went into force that enables Russia to try to disconnect its internet from the rest of the world, worrying critics who fear the measure will promote online censorship.

The Kremlin says its “sovereign internet” law, which was signed by President Vladimir Putin in May, is a security measure to protect Russia in the event of an emergency or foreign threat like a cyberattack. The law will allow Moscow to tighten control over the country’s internet by routing web traffic through state-controlled infrastructure and creating a national system of domain names.

Nov 4, 2019

Liz Parrish and Bill Faloon 10 05 2019

Posted by in categories: innovation, life extension

Liz Parish, CEO of BioViva and Bill Faloon, Co-Founder of Life Extension talk about new breakthroughs in age reversal.

This interview was conducted, by Richard Peritz during RAADfest 2019, to be included in a broadcast on ABC TV-25 in Palm Beach Florida, and other networks nationwide.

Nov 4, 2019

Scientists 3D-Printed Living Skin, Complete With Blood Vessels

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, biotech/medical

Researchers claim to have 3D-printed skin that’s alive and has blood vessels. The new technique could greatly accelerate the healing process for patients who require skin grafts, such as burn victims. In an animal trial phase, the printed skin even connected to a mouse’s own blood vessels.


This could be a game changer for burn victims.

Nov 4, 2019

New Battery Lets Electric Cars Go 200 Miles on a 10-Minute Charge

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability, transportation

While some high – end electric vehicles ( like the most expensive Teslas ) are starting to approach those kinds of ranges, it still takes around 50 minutes for a full charge using the most powerful superchargers available. That’s a long time to hang around if you’re doing a cross-country trip that requires multiple pit stops.

The result is range anxiety, where people worry about running out of juice and facing delays due to the long time it takes to recharge their car s. There are two ways to tackle the problem: building higher-capacity batteries or charging existing ones faster.

Bigger batteries are a tricky problem, because vehicles face a balancing act between weight an d capacity. After a certain point the extra weight of batteries cancels out the boost in power they provide. There’s plenty of work into batteries with better energy density—how much charge they can hold for a specific weight—but there aren’t any major breakthroughs on the horizon.

Nov 4, 2019

Drug combination preserves cognitive function in mice with Alzheimer’s disease

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience

A new study from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine shows that selectively removing senescent cells—cells that no longer divide—from brains with a form of Alzheimer’s disease can reduce brain damage and inflammation and slow the pace of cognitive decline. These findings, say researchers, add to evidence that senescent cells contribute to the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

“Our results show that eliminating these cells may be a viable route to treat Alzheimer’s disease in humans,” says Mark Mattson, a professor of neuroscience at the School of Medicine and a senior investigator in the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging.

A report on the work was published April 1 in Nature Neuroscience.

Nov 4, 2019

Blood–brain barrier best breached by small molecules

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Focused ultrasound (FUS) can be used to help drugs pass from the bloodstream into the brain, but the technique’s effectiveness depends on the ultrasound pressure and the size of the drug molecules. Michael Valdez and colleagues at the University of Arizona measured how thoroughly differently sized molecules diffused into mouse brains under a range of ultrasound intensities, and found that the largest molecules could not be delivered under any safe FUS regime. The results set a limit on the types of drugs that might one day be used to treat neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease (Ultrasound Med. Biol. 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2019.08.024).

Usually, the brain is isolated from substances circulating in the bloodstream by the blood–brain barrier (BBB), a semipermeable layer of cells that permits only certain molecules to pass. This restricts the range of drugs that can be used in the brain to small, hydrophobic molecules (such as alcohol and caffeine), other small drugs like psychotropics and some antibiotics. Extending that range would open the door to new therapeutic possibilities, says Theodore Trouard, who led the team. “The ability to temporarily and safely open the BBB to allow drugs into the brain would help address a number of neurological diseases for which there is currently no effective treatment.”

Previous research has shown that such opening can be achieved by focusing an ultrasound beam in the brain while gas microbubbles circulate in the blood. The microbubbles – perfluorocarbon-filled lipid shells about 1 µm across – are inert while they move around the body, but rapidly expand and contract in the local pressure fluctuations caused by the ultrasound field. Mechanical forces exerted by this phenomenon create temporary gaps in the layer of cells that make up the BBB, giving larger molecules a chance to breach the brain’s defences.