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We’ve been raised with the belief that death is inevitable, and so during our lives we consider the legacy of what each of us leaves behind. But what if you had unlimited time to pursue your life’s work, your hobbies, and your dreams.

What if you didn’t have to die? As science and medicine advances, the average human lifespan continues to increase from better care and medicines that treat diseases. Some scientists say that in the near future, perhaps within the next 50 years, immortality might be within our grasp.

To begin to understand the aging process, we have to look at the laws of physics. There are four laws of thermodynamics, and the second law of thermodynamics basically implies that everything made up of atoms rusts, falls apart and disintegrates. We are all made of atoms, and those atoms must obey the second law of thermodynamics.

Researchers are designing a stingray-shaped spacecraft to explore the dark side of Venus.

(Image: © CRASH Lab, University at Buffalo)

Could a stingray-shaped spacecraft get to the dark side of Venus by flapping its wings?

Researchers at the University of Buffalo (UB) are designing a spacecraft shaped like a stingray that could explore Venus in ways never before possible. The craft, designed as part of the Bio-inspired Ray for Extreme Environments and Zonal Explorations (BREEZE) project, is one of 12 selected by NASA for the agency’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which supports new, innovative technologies.

What if you could cheat death and live forever? To people in the radical life extension movement, immortality is a real possibility. Leah Green spends a long weekend at RAADfest, a meeting of scientists, activists and ordinary people who want to extend the human lifespan. So is reversing your age a real possibility? And what’s behind this wish to live forever?
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Historically, the pharmaceutical industry has relied on economies of scale, mixing hundreds of litres of reagents in massive reaction chambers to make millions of doses of a single drug. Bio-MOD and related systems, however, cycle small amounts of chemicals through a series of thumb-sized chambers that can produce hundreds or thousands of doses of multiple drugs, all in less than 24 hours. Several teams have won support for this vision from the US military: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has handed out more than US$15 million to support these do-it-yourself drug-makers.


Engineers are miniaturizing pharmaceutical production in the hope of making it portable and inexpensive.

The idea of growing babies outside the body has inspired novels and movies for decades.

Now, research groups around the world are exploring the possibility of artificial gestation. For instance, one group successfully grew a lamb in an artificial womb for four weeks. Australian researchers have also experimented with artificial gestation for lambs and sharks.

And in recent weeks, researchers in The Netherlands have received €2.9 million to develop a prototype for gestating premature babies.

In the Marshall Islands, locals have a nickname for the Runit Dome nuclear-waste site: They call it ‘The Tomb’.

The sealed pit contains more than 3.1 million cubic feet (87,800 cubic meters) of radioactive waste, which workers buried there as part of efforts to clean hazardous debris left behind after the US military detonated nuclear bombs on the land.

From 1977 to 1980, around 4,000 US servicemen were tasked with cleaning up the former nuclear testing site of Enewetak Atoll. They scooped up the contaminated soil, along with other radioactive waste materials such as military equipment, concrete, and scrap metal.