Lifeboat Foundation

The ability to accurately quantify biological age could help monitor and control healthy aging. Epigenetic clocks have emerged as promising tools for estimating biological age, yet so far, most of these clocks have been developed from heterogeneous bulk tissues, and are thus composites of two aging processes, one reflecting the change of cell-type composition with age and another reflecting the aging of individual cell-types. There is thus a need to dissect and quantify these two components of epigenetic clocks, and to develop epigenetic clocks that can yield biological age estimates at cell-type resolution. Here we demonstrate that in blood and brain, approximately 35% of an epigenetic clock’s accuracy is driven by underlying shifts in lymphocyte and neuronal subsets, respectively. Using brain and liver tissue as prototypes, we build and validate neuron and hepatocyte specific DNA methylation clocks, and demonstrate that these cell-type specific clocks yield improved estimates of chronological age in the corresponding cell and tissue-types. We find that neuron and glia specific clocks display biological age acceleration in Alzheimer’s Disease with the effect being strongest for glia in the temporal lobe. The hepatocyte clock is found accelerated in liver under various pathological conditions. In contrast, non-cell-type specific clocks do not display biological age-acceleration, or only do so more marginally. In summary, this work highlights the importance of dissecting epigenetic clocks and quantifying biological age at cell-type resolution.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

The Illumina DNA methylation datasets analyzed here are all freely available from GEO (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo).

ChatGPT and other AIs consume as much energy as thousands of US households, and demand is only set to rise, but it’s a fraction of other tech.

NASA awarded SpaceX a contract for $843 million to make a giant version of the Dragon Spacecraft to de-orbit the Space Station. It will use 47 Draco engines instead of the 16 on the Crew dragon. It will four times the thrust and six times the propellant. If there was ever a mission to move something as heavy as the space station to a higher orbit from low earth orbit then even more propellant would be needed. Three times the engines for four times the thrust indicates a 33% improvement in thrust for each engine.

SpaceX and NASA could choose to make larger crew Dragons. The Crew Dragon can hold up to seven people but it currently has only moved up to four astronauts. An orbital or Cis-lunar tug with more engines could be built to transport many dozens of people.

The architecture and systems used in Crew Dragon have been designed and tested for higher levels of safety.

In recent years, engineers and scientists worldwide have been working on new technologies for generating electricity from renewable energy sources, including photovoltaics (PVs), wind turbines and hydro-power generators. An alternative solution for mitigating the impact of climate change could be to convert the excess or waste heat generated by industries, households and hot natural environments into electricity.

This approach, known as thermoelectric power generation, relies on the use of materials with valuable thermoelectric properties. Specifically, when these materials are exposed to particularly high temperatures on one side and colder ones on the other, electrons within them start to flow from the hot side to the cooler one, which generates electrical potential

While recent works have identified some promising thermoelectric materials, the module performance is unsatisfactory due to the challenges associated with designing and fabricating optimum module structures. This significantly limits their potential real-world integration in thermoelectric modules.

697: The (Short) Path to Artificial General Intelligence — with Dr. Ben Goertzel.

696: Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Decoding — with Prof. Bob Knight.

As advances in AI and Machine Learning accelerate, the once-fictional idea of machines gaining Consciousness is becoming a pressing reality. This video explores the potential risks and questions how prepared Hue-BEings are for this new form of Consciousness. From self-driving cars to Intelligent machinery, we delve into the Evolution and implications of AI emulating Hue-BEing interactions. What type of Future will we all Build, Together?

Telomerase gene therapy shows promising potential for treating pulmonary fibrosis and other diseases associated with short telomeres.

Continue reading “Telomerase gene therapy shows promising potential for treating pulmonary fibrosis” »

Hollow worlds isaac arthur.

Use code isaacarthur at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: https://incogni.com/isaacarthur.
Earth is immense, but we only live on a thin shell of its surface. So what if we built a planet with only that thin shell, or with several layers of them?

Continue reading “Megastructures: Hollow Earth” »

A major new player has entered the race toward endless energy.