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Whether we like it or not, our society has become completely reliant on plastic. From food preservation to water transportation, computer technology to healthcare and medicine, plastic can be found in nearly every facet of the human experience.

But as we well know, plastic is a double-edged sword, with massive amounts of plastic waste not only piling up in landfills, but floating in the most remote depths of our oceans and water supplies. And despite our knowledge of plastic’s harmful effects on the environment, we’ve become so reliant on plastic that there seems to be no end in sight. In fact, plastic production is growing on a yearly basis–and posing a potentially mortal threat to us all.

However, a newly-discovered type of mushroom could not only play a crucial role in slashing plastic pollution, but could have myriad other uses in addressing the environmental crises the planet faces.

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https://youtu.be/RdoLcgxvf98

White Rabbit
Recorded Live: 11/8/1975 — Winterland — San Francisco, CA
More Jefferson Starship at Music Vault: http://www.musicvault.com

Personnel:
Grace Slick — vocals
Paul Kantner — vocals, guitar
Marty Balin — vocals, percussion
David Frieberg — keyboards, bass, vocals.
Craig Chaquico — lead guitar
Pete Sears — bass, piano
Johnny Barbata — drums, vocals (on track #4)

Summary:
Recorded after the monumentally successful Red Octopus album release, but prior to 1976’s Spitfire album, this Jefferson Starship concert captures the band performing a diverse set before a hometown audience. With singer Marty Balin back in the fold, the group again contained the three primary vocalists from the Jefferson Airplane, now supported by vocalist, keyboardist, part-time bassist, and ex-Quicksilver Messenger Service member David Frieberg; the young guitar prodigy Craig Chaquico; and the superb rhythm section of bassist/pianist Pete Sears and drummer Johnny Barbata. The group was riding high on the multi-platinum Red Octopus album and was arguably at a new peak of popularity.

This set is not only represented by material from the early Jefferson Starship albums and a couple of Jefferson Airplane classics, but interestingly features live performances of material from Grace Slick’s first solo album plus two of the best tracks Marty Balin recorded with his post-Jefferson Airplane project, Bodacious D F.

While the goal may be the same, the various obstacles the AIs will need to overcome to achieve success will vary — they might need to move an object, for example, or demonstrate an understanding of object permanence.

“We expect this to be a hard challenge,” Matthew Crosby, one of the researchers behind the Animal-AI Olympics, told New Scientist. “A perfect score will require a breakthrough in AI, well beyond current capabilities.”

“However,” he continued, “even small successes will show that it is possible, not just to find useful patterns in data, but to extrapolate from these to an understanding of how the world works.”

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In this interview with Dr. Judith Campisi at Undoing Aging 2019, she talks about senolytics, immunotherapy, and other scientific topics.


At Undoing Aging 2019, we interviewed some of the best researchers who are involved in discovering therapies for the root causes of aging. Their research aims to ameliorate the damages of aging and may one day lead to a future without age-related diseases.

Dr. Judith Campisi, one of the speakers at this conference, is a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. We asked her about the capabilities and future of senolytic drugs, which remove senescent cells from the body, along with other, related topics.

If you’ve heard of “zombie deer,” you’ve heard of the horrors of chronic wasting disease. CWD causes infected animals to stumble through the forest, sometimes drooling and becoming aggressive towards humans they once feared. They lose weight. They’re listless. The spookiest thing about it, though, isn’t its resemblance to zombie-dom—it’s the fact that it’s an incurable prion disease.

Prions are misfolded proteins that are somehow infectious (we’re still not really sure how or why) and for which we have no treatments or cures. If you were to catch one, you’d basically deteriorate over the course of several months, possibly losing the ability to speak or move, and eventually you would die. Doctors wouldn’t be able to do anything to save you.

Right now, CWD appears limited to deer, moose, and elk. But University of Minnesota researchers warned local lawmakers this week that we should be taking action now to prevent the potential spread to humans. Michael Osterholm, director of the university’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Prevention, testified that “It is my best professional judgment based on my public health experience and the risk of BSE transmission to humans in the 1980s and 1990s and my extensive review and evaluation of laboratory research studies … that it is probable that human cases of CWD associated with the consumption of contaminated meat will be documented in the years ahead. It is possible that number of human cases will be substantial and will not be isolated events,” according to the Pioneer Press.

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