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Imagine a digital avatar of ourselves living on after we die. They could help comfort our loved ones, and they could also preserve expertise and experience. There’s some benefits, but it’s still questionable if this is comforting, or just creepy.


A digital afterlife may soon be within reach, but it might not be for your benefit.

The reams of data we’re creating could soon make it possible to create digital avatars that live on after we die, aimed at comforting our loved ones or sharing our experience with future generations.

That may seem like a disappointing downgrade from the vision promised by the more optimistic futurists, where we upload our consciousness to the cloud and live forever in machines. But it might be a realistic possibility in the not-too-distant future—and the first steps have already been taken.

Look at the beauty of the universe!


Looking up at space reminds us that everyone and everything on Earth is stuck together on a big space rock that’s drifting through an infinite black void.

Unfortunately, terrestrial concerns like work, dinner, and getting enough sleep tend to keep us facing down.

Thankfully, some people not only take the time to appreciate the night sky, but are also talented enough to capture its thrilling splendor in mesmerizing pictures that remind us of our cosmically fragile existence.

T-Mobile will carry the new OnePlus 6T, the first time a phone from the popular Chinese manufacturer has been offered by a U.S. wireless provider.

The 6T launches exclusively on T-Mobile starting Thursday, the company said during an unveiling event in New York City. But the company is offering an early sale at its Times Square store in New York City starting at 5 p.m. Eastern today.

In a press release, T-Mobile called OnePlus’ offerings “superphones packed with flagship specs at a fraction of the flagship price.” The 6T boasts 128GB of internal storage, fingerprint security functionality, 8GB of RAM, a Snapdragon 845 processor, a 20 mega-pixel dual rear camera and 16 mega-pixel front facing camera and a 6.41-inch OLED screen.

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DJI is taking one of its newest drones and turning it into something small businesses and government agencies might want to use. The Chinese drone maker just announced the Mavic 2 Enterprise — a modular $1,999 version of the Mavic 2 Zoom — that is better suited for tasks like inspection or search and rescue.

Mavic 2 Enterprise comes with three different accessories. There’s a 2,400-lumen spotlight, a 100-decibel speaker, and a flashing strobe. The loudspeaker allows operators to remotely blast up to 10 custom recordings, and the strobe is visible from three miles away. DJI says the accessories help move its products “beyond imaging” and “into configurable platforms that enhance aerial productivity.”

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Systems are a go for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope after the successful recovery of a backup gyroscope replaced one that failed earlier this month.

The spacecraft entered safe mode on Oct. 5, remaining in a stable configuration for three weeks; HST returned to normal operations late on Friday.

It completed science observations the next day, using the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument to capture infrared wavelengths of a distant, star-forming galaxy.

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Today we have the transcript of “Pursuing Outreach Opportunities: Lifespan.io’s Experiences in Promoting Healthy Life Extension”, a talk that LEAF Outreach Director Elena Milova gave at TransVision 2018, a transhumanist conference in Madrid, Spain recently.


This is the transcript of “Pursuing Outreach Opportunities: Lifespan.io’s Experiences in Promoting Healthy Life Extension”, a talk that LEAF Outreach Director Elena Milova gave at TransVision 2018, a transhumanist conference in Madrid, Spain.

My name is Elena Milova, and I work with the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, a non-profit organization headquartered in New York City. Our main activity is to support research on regenerative therapies that can possibly make human life healthier and longer. To do that, we have developed the non-profit crowdfunding platform Lifespan.io, and, as of now, we have gathered more than 300 thousand dollars in support of 7 scientific projects. We are currently running a campaign to support David Sinclair’s NAD+ Mouse project, a study of NMN and its effect on healthy lifespan in mice.

Another direction of our activity is to educate the public about the potential of rejuvenation therapies.

Protein RbAp48 works with osteocalcin to preserve memory in old age.


In a recent open-access study, scientists at Columbia University have demonstrated that a protein known as RbAp48 crucially interacts with osteocalcin to help preserve memory. The protein, which is present in mice as well as people, declines with age, contributing to age-related memory loss [1].

Abstract

Precisely deciphering the molecular mechanisms of age-related memory loss is crucial to create appropriate therapeutic interventions. We have previously shown that the histone-binding protein RbAp48/Rbbp4 is a molecular determinant of Age-Related Memory Loss. By exploring how this protein regulates the genomic landscape of the hippocampal circuit, we find that RbAp48 controls the expression of BDNF and GPR158 proteins, both critical components of osteocalcin (OCN) signaling in the mouse hippocampus. We show that inhibition of RbAp48 in the hippocampal formation inhibits OCN’s beneficial functions in cognition and causes deficits in discrimination memory. In turn, disruption of OCN/GPR158 signaling leads to the downregulation of RbAp48 protein, mimicking the discrimination memory deficits observed in the aged hippocampus. We also show that activation of the OCN/GPR158 pathway increases the expression of RbAp48 in the aged dentate gyrus and rescues age-related memory loss.