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For the next installment of the informal TechCrunch book club, we are reading the fourth story in Ted Chiang’s Exhalation. The goal of this book club is to expand our minds to new worlds, ideas, and vistas, and The Lifecycle of Software Objects doesn’t disappoint. Centered in a future world where virtual worlds and generalized AI have become commonplace, it’s a fantastic example of speculative fiction that forces us to confront all kinds of fundamental questions.

If you’ve missed the earlier parts in this book club series, be sure to check out:

PepsiCo’s Senior VP of R&D, Dr. Ellen de Brabander, joins me on this ideaXme (http://radioideaxme.com/) episode to talk about running the R&D engine for a $200 billion company, the parallels between pharma and food in terms of increasing customization / personalization, and her future visions for the $8 trillion global food and beverage space — (Personal caveat — While I avoid processed foods, one cannot ignore the place at the table that “big food” will have in crafting and investing in the future of health, wellness, and longevity) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDSiVlKNnRA&t=1 #Ideaxme #Pepsi #Nutrition #Research #Science #Health #Wellness #Sustainablity #Longevity #FritoLay #Tropicana #QuakerOats #Gatorade #Aquafina #MountainDew #Doritos #Cheetos #Ruffles #Tostitos #Fritos #Biotech #LifeExtension #Aging #IraPastor #Bioquark #Regenerage


Ira Pastor, ideaXme exponential health ambassador, interviews Dr. Ellen de Brabander, Senior Vice President Research and Development at PepsiCo.

Ira Pastor Comments:

The Wuhan Coronavirus continues its deadly worldwide expansion, with a fifth death outside of China, and a cruise ship that docked in Cambodia had a passenger that tested positive, but flew back to Malaysia anyway. Unbelievable!

“A further 70 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan on Sunday tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total to 355, as countries began to fly their citizens on the ship home.

There is also growing concern over possible infections among people who disembarked from the MS Westerdam in Cambodia on Friday, after it was confirmed that one passenger, who later flew to Malaysia, tested positive for the virus.

Four other deaths have occurred outside mainland China – in Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and France.”


Billionaire investor Ron Baron believes Tesla has the potential to hit “at least” $1 trillion in revenue in 10 years and continue to grow from there.

“It’s nowhere near ended at that point and time,” he said Tuesday morning on “Squawk Box.” “There’s a lot of growth opportunities from that point going forward.”

Baron, whose eponymous investment firm holds nearly 1.63 million Tesla shares, said Baron Capital will not sell a single share of company. Tesla’s recent run, he said, is “just the beginning” as he believes the company “could be one of the largest companies in the whole world.”

Many of you are way ahead of me on this topic. I design 3D printed parts for aircraft, but I didn’t think that functional, transplantable 3D printed human organs were this advanced. This article is about a heart, but it is currently only the size of a rabbit heart. Sizing it up to human size and testing are next, but this is much farther along than I expected.

Rapid creation of replacement organs, using the patient’s own cells to circumvent the body rejecting the transplant, is a direct contributor to superlongevity.


Researchers from Tel Aviv University have created the world’s first 3D printed heart, using cellular materials from the patient.

Later today I’ll lose consciousness for a few hours to rest and repair. There’s a good chance you will, too. Yet as ubiquitous as sleep is, we know very little about which parts of the brain are fundamental to staying awake.

Thanks to a recent experiment that stimulated the brains of anaesthetised macaques, we have a clearer idea of just which neurological structures might be primarily responsible for switching us on each day.

The results not only help us to better understand the processes behind anaesthesia; for those trapped in vegetative or comatose states by illness or injury it could mean a pathway out again.