Lifeboat Foundation

A new study shows that scientists might be able to not only slow the process of aging but actually reverse it, Benjamin Button-style.

Volunteers in a California study were given a cocktail of three common drugs for one year— a growth hormone and two diabetes medications. Scientists had been testing the drugs in the hope of regenerating the thymus gland.

But upon further analysis, they found that participants had lost an average of 2.5 years on their “epigenetic clock,” measured by analyzing marks on a person’s genomes, according to the journal Nature. Participants’ immune systems also showed signs of rejuvenation.

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Leonard Susskind is a professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory and in general as one of the greatest physicists of our time both as a researcher and an educator. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

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Continue reading “Leonard Susskind: Quantum Mechanics, String Theory and Black Holes” »

Discussions like this one are among the major reasons for my involvement in the transhumanist movement. Steele Archer of the Debt Nation show has hosted an excellent panel on life-extension advocacy – its history, motivations, and future prospects, as well as the societal implications and relationship to technological advancement more broadly. Watch it here for interdisciplinary insights from Ira Pastor, Johannon Ben Zion, and myself: .

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Continue reading “RADICAL LIFE EXTENSION / CHAIRMAN Stolyarov, CEO Bioquark Ira Pastor & Ben Zion — EP 79. DEBT NATION” »

Telomeres are the protective caps of our chromosomes and play a central role in the aging process. Shorter telomeres are associated with chronic diseases and high stress levels can contribute to their shortening. A new study now shows that if telomeres change in their length, that change is also reflected in our brain structure. This association was identified by a team of scientists including Lara Puhlmann and Pascal Vrtička from the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Brain Sciences in Leipzig together with Elissa Epel from the University of California and Tania Singer from the Social Neuroscience Lab in Berlin as part of Singer’s ReSource Project.

Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that become shorter with each cell division. If they become so short that the genes they protect could be damaged, the cell stops dividing and renewing. Consequently, the cell is increasingly unable to perform its functions. This mechanism is one of the ways in which we age.

Telomere length is therefore regarded as a marker for the biological age of a person—in contrast to their chronological age. For two people of the same chronological age, the person with shorter telomeres has an increased risk of developing age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s or cancer, and even a shorter life expectancy.

“DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” Bill Gates wrote this in 1995, long before synthetic biology – a scientific discipline focused on reading, writing, and editing DNA – was being harnessed to program living cells. Today, the cost to order a custom DNA sequence has fallen faster than Moore’s law; perhaps that’s why the Microsoft founder is turning a significant part of his attention, and wallet, towards this exciting field.

Bill Gates is not the only tech founder billionaire that sees a parallel between bits and biology, either. Many other tech founders – the same people that made their money programming 1s and 0s – are now investing in biotech founders poised to make their own fortunes by programming A’s, T’s, G’s and C’s.

The industry has raised more than $12.3B in the last 10 years and last year, 98 synthetic biology companies collectively raised $3.8 billion, compared to just under $400 million total invested less than a decade ago. Synthetic biology companies are disrupting nearly every industry, from agriculture to medicine to cell-based meats. Engineered microorganisms are even being used to produce more sustainable fabrics and manufacture biofuels from recycled carbon emissions.

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The Moon’s subsurface is the key to its longterm development and sustainability, says NASA scientist.

A view of the Apollo 11 lunar module “Eagle” as it returned from the surface of the moon to dock … [+] with the command module “Columbia”. A smooth mare area is visible on the Moon below and a half-illuminated Earth hangs over the horizon. Command module pilot Michael Collins took this picture.

Caltech scientists have discovered a new species of worm thriving in the extreme environment of Mono Lake. This new species, temporarily dubbed Auanema sp., has three different sexes, can survive 500 times the lethal human dose of arsenic, and carries its young inside its body like a kangaroo.

Mono Lake, located in the Eastern Sierras of California, is three times as salty as the ocean and has an alkaline pH of 10. Before this study, only two other species (other than bacteria and algae) were known to live in the lake—brine shrimp and diving flies. In this new work, the team discovered eight more species, all belonging to a class of microscopic worms called nematodes, thriving in and around Mono Lake.

The work was done primarily in the laboratory of Paul Sternberg, Bren Professor of Biology. A paper describing the research appears online on September 26 in the journal Current Biology.

Recent surveys, studies, forecasts and other quantitative assessments of the progress of AI, highlighted among other findings, disagreements about the impact of chatbots: Do purchase rates go down when people find out they are interacting with a chatbot? Or do chatbots actually increase customer satisfaction and loyalty? And are chatbots already successful in replacing human workers?