Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 9314

Amino acids, just like those that make up every protein in our bodies, have been found in the tails of comets.

Because, following a string of remarkable discoveries over the past two decades, the idea of alien life is not as far-fetched as it used to seem.

Discovery now seems inevitable and possibly imminent.

While life is a special kind of complex chemistry, the elements involved are nothing special: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and so on are among the most abundant elements in the universe. Complex organic chemistry is surprisingly common.

Continue reading “Here’s why scientists think discovering aliens is inevitable and imminent” | >

Too often those in power lump thousands of years of Middle Eastern religion and culture into monolithic entities to be feared or persecuted. But at least one government institution is doing exactly the opposite. For Nowruz, the Persian New Year, the Library of Congress has released a digital collection of its rare Persian-language manuscripts, an archive spanning 700 years. This free resource opens windows on diverse religious, national, linguistic, and cultural traditions, most, but not all, Islamic, yet all different from each other in complex and striking ways.

“We nowadays are programmed to think Persia equates with Iran, but when you look at this it is a multiregional collection,” says a Library specialist in its African and Middle Eastern Division, Hirad Dinavari. “Many contributed to it. Some were Indian, some were Turkic, Central Asian.” The “deep, cosmopolitan archive,” as Atlas Obscura’s Jonathan Carey writes, consists of a relatively small number of manuscripts—only 155. That may not seem particularly significant given the enormity of some other online collections.

Read more

Announces the publication of a new 315-page open-access report: “National Longevity Development Plans: Global Overview 2019 (First Edition)”.

It offers comprehensive profiles of relevant initiatives in the UK, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Israel, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Japan, the USA, Spain, the European Union and China, and utilizes sophisticated analytical metrics to compare the overall strength, focus, proactivity and relevance of their Longevity-related projects, initiatives and development plans.

Link to the Report: https://www.aginganalytics.com/longevity-development-plans

#aging #ageing #longevity #ageingpopulation #demographicageing #aginganalytics #geroscience #governmentlongevity #industrialstrategy

Continue reading “Aging Analytics Agency Photo 5” | >

Two hypersonic vehicle prototypes developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Air Force are due to fly by the end of the year, the agency’s director said May 1.

One vehicle is part of the hypersonic air-breathing weapon concept, or HAWC, program. The other is the tactical boost glide, or TBG, effort, said Steven Walker.

“We’re on track for both to have flights … before the calendar year ends,” he told reporters during a breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C. However, that might be questionable because once “you actually get into the building of these things and qualifying the hardware, … things tend to slip.”

Read more

San Diego-based biotechnology company Samumed has recently announced that it will be moving to phase 3 clinical trials of its drug lorecivivint (SM04690) for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis.

What is osteoarthritis?

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis in the knee and a leading cause of adult disability, particularly among older people. This degenerative, “wear-and-tear” arthritis is characterized by the destruction of the articular cartilage and structural changes to the bone, which leads to pain, inflammation, and loss of joint function and mobility. It occurs most often in people who are at least 50 years old, but it may occur in younger people as well.

Read more

The latest SpaceX Dragon cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) included an experiment that could help to combat the ravages of time here on Earth. The European experiment will test how ceramic nanoparticles interact with cells to act as an anti-aging supplement that not only holds promise for alleviating the effects of growing old, but also for combatting chronic illness and space-related stresses for astronauts on prolonged space missions.

Read more

Coffee… mostly, I drink coffee.

A kindergartener once asked me, “why don’t you wear science clothes?” I gathered that she meant a lab coat. Then there is the utter surprise my neighbors show when I tell them—yes—I am on my way to work wearing sandals, shorts and a t-shirt. Take a moment and do a google image search of “scientist”. You have to scroll through several pages before you see a person not wearing a lab coat. So if I don’t wear a lab coat while staring into a beaker as if the colorful liquid inside contained a part of my soul, what do I do all day?

Read more