Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 8700

Lawyers and doctors are typically paid more than manual laborers because of the relative shorter supply of lawyers and doctors, which is in part due to the number of years of training required to enter those professions and the corresponding value society attributes to those skills. But what will happen to their wages once the market is faced with an abundance of skilled labor? If anyone is able to upload legal or medical know-how to their brain and know just as much as the professionals in those fields, why pay a professional a higher wage?

Of course, certain skills, such as strategic judgment and contextual understanding, may be difficult, if not impossible, to digitize. But even the games of chess and Go, both complex games that require strategic decision-making and foresight, have now been conquered by AIs that taught themselves how to play—and beat—some of the best human players.

The technology’s potential for emancipation and human advancement is immense. But we—entrepreneurs, researchers, professionals, policymakers, and industry—must not lose sight of the social risks.

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Regrowing bones is no easy task, but the world’s lightest solid might make it easier to achieve. Researchers have figured out a way to use hybrid aerogels, strong but ultralight materials, to prompt new bone tissue to grow and replace lost or damaged tissue.

Although bone cancer is a relatively rare disease (it accounts for less than 1% of all cancers), people who suffer from it often end up losing a lot of bone tissue and, in extreme cases, undergo amputation. The cancerous tissue has to be cut out, taking with it a large chunk of nearby healthy tissue to make sure that the cancer does not spread. This effectively removes the cancer, but also leaves the patient with a lot less bone than they started out with.

A recent study has used hybrid aerogels to restore the lost tissue by prompting bone regeneration. Aerogels are basically a combination of solid and gas. Think Jell-O, but one where the water has been slowly dried out and replaced completely by air. This slow and careful removing of liquid is what allows the gel to retain its shape instead of shriveling into a hard lump. The pairing of solid and gas makes aerogels extremely light and very porous. These two qualities make them exceptionally suitable to use as scaffolds, which can be used as physical roadmaps for the developing bone to follow as it grows.

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View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/can-we-eat-to-starve-cancer-william-li

William Li presents a new way to think about treating cancer and other diseases: anti-angiogenesis, preventing the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor. The crucial first (and best) step: Eating cancer-fighting foods that cut off the supply lines and beat cancer at its own game.

Talk by WIlliam Li.

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Education and bravery are the key to our survival. In this article we dig into the correlation between health and longevity.

With so many supplement salesman and scientists talking about longevity it can get confusing as to exactly what that might mean. Of course we all want to live as long as we can but most would agree to it only if they were able to be healthy and active. After all how would life be worth it if you were confined to a bed or wheelchair in constant pain?

As we improve health we also extend life. One drawback to extending life is that we face health problems we might have avoided by simply not being alive. However as we extend life we will also extend health and find ways to cure all diseases. For most of humanity throughout the ages Cancer or Alzheimer’s was rarely a cause for concern. Cancer and Alzheimer’s was not as prevalent because most people did not live long enough to be stricken with them. Many humans died from infections, starvation, and injury and thus the expected life span was much lower than today. Every time a new advancement is made in healthcare we improve the odds of living longer. Hospitals, handwashing, and vaccines all improved a human beings chance of survival and also their chance of contracting a new or otherwise unusual disease.

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