Lifeboat Foundation

Measurements of solar neutrino fluxes.

Something we found in a particle accelerator could explain massive stars’ supernovae.

The new research suggests that:

WASHINGTON, DC (Oct. 24, 2018)— Nine to 33 million visits to the emergency room (ER) for asthma worldwide may be triggered by breathing in air polluted by ozone or fine particulate matter—pollutants that can enter the lung’s deep airways, according to a study published today.

Scientists have long known that breathing in air sullied by car emissions and other pollutants could trigger asthma attacks. However, the new study is the first to quantify air pollution’s impact on asthma cases around the globe.

Continue reading “Air pollution leads to millions of ER visits for asthma attacks worldwide” »

Many mutations accumulate in the esophagus as we age.

Scientists at the MRC Cancer Unit of the Wellcome Sanger Institute and other departments of the University of Cambridge discovered that healthy esophageal tissue accumulates very high numbers of mutations with age, to the point that, by the time middle age is reached, it is likely to contain more cells with a particular mutation than cells without it [1].

Abstract

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Judith Campisi as a speaker for the 2019 Undoing Aging Conference.

At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Dr. Judith Campisi established a broad program to understand the relationship between aging and age-related disease.

Judith Campisi says: “Aging research has entered an era of unprecedented hope for interventions that can prevent, delay and, in some cases, reverse much of the functional decline that is a hallmark of aging. There is still a lot of research to be done! I am delighted to be among the speakers at Undoing Aging 2019, where I will discuss the opportunities and challenges of our recent research.”

Continue reading “We are happy to announce Dr” »

Just where artificial intelligence is taking us, at what pace and along what trajectory, is uncertain. The technology, of course, is raising serious questions about its potential impact on jobs, privacy and politics.

The internet is a technology of low-cost communication and connection. Everything from email to e-commerce to social networks has hinged on the internet’s transformative role in changing the economics of communication. All those connections suddenly became both possible and cheap.

Artificial intelligence is a technology of low-cost prediction and discovery. It exploits the new resource of the digital age — vast amounts of data — to identify patterns and make predictions. Much of what A.I. does today can be thought of as a prediction. What product to recommend, what ad to show you, what image is in that picture, what move should the robot make next — all are automated predictions.

Continue reading “From Agriculture to Art — the A.I. Wave Sweeps In” »

The $20 billion project is an amazing construction feat. But was it worth it?

To paraphrase Churchill’s words following the Second Battle of El Alamein: Google’s announcement about their new venture to extend human life, Calico, is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

(MORE: Google vs. Death)

Since the dawn of civilization, humanity has been enslaved by the knowledge that no lifestyle choice, no medicine, no quirk of fate can enable anyone to live for more than a few decades without suffering progressive, inexorable decline in physical and mental function, leading inevitably to death. So soul-destroying has this knowledge been, for almost everyone, that we have constructed our entire society and world view around ways to put it out of our minds, mostly by convincing ourselves that the tragedy of aging is actually a good thing. And why not? After all, why be preoccupied about something one cannot affect?

Continue reading “Google’s Calico: the War on Aging Has Truly Begun” »