Lifeboat Foundation

The authorities said the change was aimed at strengthening the government’s “research-driven development strategy” and “optimising the distribution of funding on science and technology”, while scientists said it meant funding approval would be more stringent.

Researchers say they spend so much time on grant applications that they get no time to do science.

You’re cordially invited to the 1st of a series of blog entries I’m writing on anti-aging research smile

A: “It’s a dynamic system that veers away from its homeostasis (normal equilibrium point): hence a form of slow-progressing illness. Labeling it as ‘natural’ is a surrender to our traditional state of ignorance and powerlessness, which fortunately are beginning to be changed!”

In the wake of the October 29 Indonesian crash of a brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8 that took the lives of 189 passengers, the FAA has issued Emergency Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2018−23−51. The 737 is the most widely flown aircraft in the world, This tragedy opens an important conversation between regulators, operators and pilots.

Lion Air, an experienced 737 operator, was the launch carrier last year for the 737 MAX 8 and the MAX 9 in March. While it will take a long time to analyze the Lion Air 610 accident, the AD points out that current system architecture has created vulnerabilities.

The APOE gene, or the “forgetting gene,” has been proven to influence Alzheimer’s risk. So a team of scientists is exploring the effect of gene therapy on people with the riskiest version of the gene.

If it works, the pay-off could be huge.

Gene therapy involves transplanting specific genetic material into human cells in order to correct genetic problems, and is typically attempted on diseases with a singular cause. Alzheimer’s doesn’t seem to have one singular cause — but since the risk of developing it is so strongly associated with the APOE gene, it’s certainly worth a try.

In the spirit of the progenitor of Budda, Mohammed, and Christ, accept that the purse is a tool of suffering.

This new book by Jim Mellon and Al Chalabi is a layman’s guide to longevity. It investigates the new technologies and explains how to benefit from the life extending technologies both personally and professionally. It helps readers unravel the science, offers ideas on potential investment and reveals the views of the key opinion leaders.

The state of the immune system is an important determinant of aging. With age, immune function both declines in effectiveness and becomes inflammatory. Chronic inflammation accelerates the progression of all of the common age-related diseases. It disrupts tissue maintenance and regeneration, to pick one of many examples. It is likely that a sizable component of variation in aging arises from the differences between individuals in the degree to which the immune system has become damaged and dysfunctional.

Some of this immune aging is a matter of the burden of exposure to more rather than fewer pathogens over a lifetime: persistent infections in particular, such as cytomegalovirus and other herpesviruses, appear to drive immune aging. Some immune aging stems from the atrophy of the thymus, the organ responsible for maturation of T cells. A lesser volume of active thymic tissue means fewer new T cells to take up an effective defense of the body. Some immune aging is due to failure of barriers in the gut, allowing gut bacteria to trigger inflammatory activity. Some immune aging arises from cellular senescence among immune cells, turning them into harmful centers of inflammatory signaling. All of these issues have potential solutions, but, as in all matters related to aging, far too little funding and attention are given to the relevant development programs.

They’re called ‘the blobs’ — two lumpy, continent-size mountains of hot, compressed rock lurking at the bottom of Earth’s mantle. Nobody knows what they are.

With a flyby of Pallas, NASA mission could help round out exploration of our solar system’s three largest asteroids.

These days, it seems anyone wanting to launch rockets will inevitably be compared to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, especially if rocket launching isn’t the only business interest on the agenda. Musk has Tesla plus SpaceX, and Bezos has Amazon plus Blue Origin. Now, meet Mark Russell, a disciple of Bezos and rocket engineer who founded HyperSciences, a drilling company that uses aerospace technology to both quickly extract underground geothermal energy and put payloads into orbit at low cost.

The idea of leveraging Earth’s geothermal energy is not a new concept, but the expense and time required to reach the depth needed have been prohibitively expensive. That’s where HyperSciences comes in.

Russell and his team have developed a low-cost, multi-purpose projectile called the HyperDrone that can accelerate to velocities over five times the speed of sound and pulverize hard rock via their HyperDrill. This will enable tunneling speeds that are 5–10 times quicker than conventional methods, and more importantly, it opens up significant market viability in other industries that could benefit, namely when that acceleration is pointed skyward. NASA has already recognized this potential and is a current investor and major partner of HyperSciences.