Lifeboat News #287

• AGI-26
• AICHE 2026
• BICA 2026
• NoRCEL Education and Research Academy (NoRCEL ERA)
• RAADfest 2026
• Space Renaissance International IV World Congress Update
• UPoN Conference 2026
• Papers
• Patents
• Chapters
• Books
• Videos
• Blog
• Growing Membership

AGI-26

AGI-26 will be held July 27–30 in San Francisco, California and in Cyberspace.
 
The frontier of mind and machine is closer than ever. Join the world’s leading researchers at AGI-26, where ideas, architectures, and insights collide to advance the future of thinking machines.
 
Our Joscha Bach, David Eagleman, Ben Goertzel, Faezeh Habibi, Daniel Hulme, Alexander Ororbia, Matt O. Iklé, Gary Marcus, Reza Rassool, and Alex Wissner-Gross will be speaking/participating.
 
Learn more at https://agi-conference.org

AICHE 2026

Africa International Conference on Human Enhancement 2026 will be held in Abuja, Nigeria and Cyberspace on December 10–11. Lifeboat Foundation is Partner of this event.
 
AICHE 2026 is the first major conference on human enhancement in Africa, bringing together scholars, philosophers, scientists, theologians, students, and the public for an interdisciplinary dialogue on transhumanism, emerging technologies, and their ethical, social, and religious implications across the continent.
 
Abstracts are being accepted until September 15.
 
Our Ojochogwu Abdul, Bill Faloon, Ósìnàkáchì Ákùmà Kálù, Ebénézer Njoh-Mouellé, Brenda Ramokopelwa, Gabriel Rothblatt, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, and Natasha Vita-More will be speaking/participating.
 
Learn more at https://www.transhumanistsafrica.org/AICHE2026

BICA 2026

The International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures, the 17th Annual Meeting (BICA 2026) will be held September 9–12 in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico and in Cyberspace.
 
Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA) are computational frameworks for building intelligent agents that are inspired from biological intelligence. Biological intelligent systems, notably animals such as humans, have many qualities that are often lacking in artificially designed systems including robustness, flexibility, and adaptability to environments.
 
Our Pulin Agrawal, Joscha Bach, Jordi Bieger, Haris Dindo, David Kelley, Unmesh Kurup, Christian Lebiere, James A. Reggia, Rafal Rzepka, Alexei Samsonovich, Ricardo Sanz, Howard Schneider, and Pei Wang will be participating.
 
Learn more at https://www.bicaai.org

NoRCEL Education and Research Academy (NoRCEL ERA)

The launch of the NoRCEL Education and Research Academy (NoRCEL ERA) will take place on Saturday, 12 September 2026, commencing at 3:00 pm British Summer Time (BST) and lasting approximately four hours. This will be a free online event that will discuss “Foundations of Astroscience, Life in the Universe, and Scientific Thinking”.
 
Unlike many “interdisciplinary” programmes that sacrifice depth for breadth, NoRCEL’s ERA will focus on foundational principles and the connections between them. Their students will develop transferable intellectual capabilities, independent research skills, and the adaptability needed in a rapidly changing world. As AI reshapes the future of work and knowledge, ERA will prepare future-ready graduates equipped to be able to think critically, integrate ideas across domains, and contribute meaningfully within an increasingly complex and AI-driven society.
 
This academy is lead by our Sohan Jheeta. Register for free at https://norcel.net/norcel-era

RAADfest 2026

RAADfest 2026, the world’s most impactful longevity conference, will be held September 4–6 in Scottsdale, Arizona USA.
 
Our Bill Andrews, William Faloon, Aubrey de Grey, Sandra Kaufmann, Elizabeth Parrish, and James Strole will be speaking.
 
Learn more at https://www.raadfest.com

Space Renaissance International IV World Congress Update

The Space Renaissance International IV World Congress will be held June 30–July 4 in Cyberspace.
 
Our Ghanim Alotaibi, Alfred Anzaldua, Isaac Arthur, Adriano V. Autino, Gary Barnhard, Alberto Cavallo, Veronica Chiaravalli, Bernard Foing, Corrinne Graham, Werner Grandl, Michelle Hanlon, Susan Jewell, Robert Katz, Gregg Li, Tom Matula, Haroon Oqab, Joe Pelton, Eligar Sadeh, Amalie Sinclair, Jerry Stone, Madhu Thangavelu, Rick Tumlinson, Paul Werbos, Frank White, Steve Wolfe, and Bob Zubrin will be speaking/participating.
 
Learn more at https://2026.spacerenaissance.space

UPoN Conference 2026

The 10th edition of the International Conference on Unsolved Problems on Noise (UPoN 2026) will be held September 8–11 in Messina, Italy.
 
The UPoN conference is a highly interdisciplinary forum in which researchers interested in random fluctuations in a variety of fields and applications can meet and discuss, in an engaging and fruitful atmosphere, the most recent advances in both theory and applications of noise and fluctuations.
 
Learn more at https://upon2026.unime.it

Papers

Read the free paper “Adherence to Mediterranean diet: a public health paradox”, by our Domenico Praticó at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....2692948
 
Paradoxically, while Mediterranean populations increasingly move away from their traditional dietary heritage, several non-Mediterranean countries are progressively adopting dietary models that share many Mediterranean nutritional principles, often motivated by both health and sustainability considerations. This “Mediterranean diet paradox” highlights the urgent need for coordinated public health strategies aimed at preserving and promoting traditional healthy dietary patterns within the Mediterranean region itself.
 
Read “Advancing stem cell technologies for conservation of wildlife biodiversity”, coauthored by our Jeanne F. Loring at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11491813
 
Read “Atomically precise mechanosynthesis of carbon structures on hydrogenated Si(100) by inverted-mode STM”, coauthored by our Damian G. Allis at https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27250
 
Read “Gene Editing in Maize: Progress and Challenges”, coauthored by our Samia Hassan at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.10...722-5_12
 
Read “‘Human, all too human’: Will we become hostages to our own minds by implementing universal AI?” by our Ariel VA Feinerman at https://medium.com/@arielf/human-all-to...4ab2018e
 
Read “Mnemonic Foundations of a Playable Topology of Global Coherence: From alphabetic memorability to toroidal dynamics of a 26-fold pattern of polyhedral governance” by our Anthony Judge at https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs20...poly.php
 
Read “The Promise and Peril of Emerging Technology for Brain Enhancement” by our Kevin LaGrandeur at https://posthumanism.co.uk/jp/article/view/110/104
 
Read “Space mission: The young entrepreneur behind Space Copy is redeveloping 3D printing technology for applications on Earth and, ultimately, the moon” about our Madison C. Feehan at https://edition.pagesuite.com/html5/rea...711e0b4e (See pages 170–171.)

Patents

Our Kattesh V. Katti and Kavita Katti have invented the patent AU, AG and rich phytochemical payload nanomaterials, antiviral/antibacterial products and synthesis methods.
 
The highlight of this discovery is the development of a sweet gum-mediated silver nanoparticle antiviral/antibacterial agent that demonstrates unprecedented efficacy, achieving more than a 3 log10 (99.96%) reduction in COVID-19 viral titer.
 
Learn more at https://patents.justia.com/patent/12617014

Chapters

Read “Foresight Europe Network: History, leadership, and future directions” by our Mara Di Berardo at https://www.tutuseura.fi/wp-content/upl...es11.pdf This is the peer-reviewed chapter 11 in the free online book Our World of Futures Studies as a Mosaic Part 2.

Books

Read “Biochemical and Molecular Pharmacology in Drug Discovery”, coedited by our William C. Cho at https://amzn.to/4ouGueV
 
Read the free book “Flourishing for All: How the Outer Space Treaty Can Deliver What Planets Never Could, by our Charles Tandy and Claude, with assistance by our R. Michael Perry at https://lifeboat.com/pdfs/flourishing.for.all.pdf
 
Read “Global Health Care Equivalency in the Age of Nanotechnology, Nanomedicine and Artificial Intelligence”, coedited by our Frank Boehm at https://amzn.to/4ovEuDa
 
Read “Not Mars. Not Venus. Just Us: Ending the Myth That Men and Women Are Worlds Apart” by our Maria Olon Tsaroucha at https://amzn.to/4y9DdGq
 
Read “The Medium Picture” by our Roy Christopher at https://amzn.to/43Leha9
 
The ever-evolving ways that we interact with each other, our world, and ourselves through technology is a topic as worn as the devices we clutch and carry every day. How did we get here?
 
Drawing from the disciplines of media ecology and media archaeology, as well as bringing fresh perspectives from subcultures of music and skateboarding, The Medium Picture illuminates aspects of technological mediation that have been overlooked along the way. Roy’s high-tempo, lucid prose shows us how immersion in unmoored technologies of connectivity places us in a world of pure media and redefines who we are, how we are, and what we will be.
 
“Exactly the sort of contemporary cultural analysis to yield unnerving flashes of the future.” — William Gibson, award-winning author of Neuromancer.
 
Read “Superalignment: The Three Approaches to the AI Alignment Problem” by our Alex M. Vikoulov at https://amzn.to/4vMrZ8B
 
Read “The Thermodynamics of Tyranny: How Bitcoin Shifts the Energy Balance of Political Power” by our Arthur Franz at https://tyrannei.com/en
 
Read “Thus Spoke Arta: How Our Planet is Entering a New Era” by our Victor V. Motti at https://amzn.to/4nHzYB0
 
Read “The Varieties of Spiritual Experience: 21st Century Research and Perspectives”, coauthored by our David B. Yaden, now available in paperback at https://amzn.to/4eADcSZ

Videos

Watch “Episode 10: David Hanson – On Using Humanoid Robots to Train Compassionate AGI” with our David Hanson at https://youtu.be/871g66P9sDg
 
Watch “The Physics of FTL Travel” by our Isaac Arthur at https://youtu.be/AKHqBrjTINU

Blog

Pascal Baranowska joins our blog team with the post “Loss of sirtuin 3 disrupts cellular senescence signaling pathways” at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/loss-...pathways
 
Recent interesting blog posts include:
 
[expert commentary] “5 Benefits And Risks Of Using AI For Cybersecurity” by Chuck Brooks at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/5-ben...security
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “A domain-adapted large language model to support clinicians in psychiatric clinical practice” by Cecile G. Tamura at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/a-dom...practice
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Researchers demonstrate a quantum effect with potential for battery-free electronics” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/a-str...atteries
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Nature 2026] “DAMPE satellite finds a universal spectral break in cosmic rays at ~15 TV” by Natalie Chan at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/after...mic-rays
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Blood 2024] “Researchers identify the MAL blood group, resolving a 50-year question” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/after...od-group
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Amino acid patterns proposed as a biosignature test for alien life” by Laurence Tognetti at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/amino...ien-life
 
[expert commentary] “Bootstrapping Icarus: Why rockets are hard” by Kaiser Matin at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/boots...are-hard
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Photonic quantum computing experiment suggests improved prospects for scaling” by Jose Ruben Rodriguez Fuentes at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/break...e-viable
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Researchers report an LLM-assisted result in particle physics” by Nicholi Avery at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/chatg...-physics
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Nat Biotechnol 2025] “Discovery and engineering of retrons for precise genome editing” by Logan Thrasher Collins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/disco...-editing
 
[speculative – interview, contested theory] “Interview: Stuart Hameroff argues consciousness exceeds computation” by Nikola Danaylov at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/dr-st...putation
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Study reports an unexpected cardiac adaptation to exercise” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/exerc...expected
 
[high confidence – animal model] “Genetically modified marmosets as a model for human deafness provide a foundation for future gene therapies” by Shubham Ghosh Roy at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/genet...herapies
 
[medium confidence – company announcement] “Groove Quantum Demonstrates 18-Qubit Spin Processor and Secures Funding” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/groov...-funding
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Study finds limited heart-muscle regeneration after heart attack” by Shailesh Prasad at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/human...sts-find
 
[medium confidence – single study] “New study suggests humans retain a limited regenerative capacity” by Quinn Sena at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/human...suggests
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, ApJL 2026] “JWST Finds Distant Origins for Rare Exoplanet Pair” by Laurence Tognetti at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/jwst-...net-pair
 
[speculative – philosophical] “Living in a flow: the Universe is not where things are, but where they go” by Cecile G. Tamura at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/livin...-they-go
 
[high confidence – news report, May 2026] “Humanoid robot ‘Gabi’ takes part in a Buddhist ordination ceremony in Seoul” by Brent Ellman at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/meet-...practice
 
[speculative – prediction, video commentary] “Commentary on Ray Kurzweil’s nanobot predictions for 2030” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/the-n...for-2030
 
[medium confidence – survey] “Survey finds notable optimism about cryonics among neurosurgeons” by Shailesh Prasad at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/neuro...ey-finds
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “New magnetic system lets microrobots move without cameras or tracking” by Shailesh Prasad at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/new-m...tracking
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Prototype memory chip reported to operate at 1300°F” by Genevieve Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/new-m...han-lava
 
[medium confidence – theoretical] “One-way phonon synchronization could survive noise and defects, theoretical physicists suggest” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/one-w...-suggest
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Printable artificial neurons reported to signal to living brain cells” by Jose Ruben Rodriguez Fuentes at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/print...in-cells
 
[speculative – prediction] “Professor predicts AI could accelerate disease research within a decade” by Dan Kummer at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/profe...a-decade
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “Researchers 3D print key components for a point-of-care mass spectrometer” by Quinn Sena at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/resea...trometer
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Researchers demonstrate non-contact rotation in coupled fluid droplets” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/scien...touching
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Researchers report a freezing method that avoids cracking in transplant organs” by Genevieve Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/scien...ing-them
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Astronomers report a large-scale magnetic structure in the Milky Way” by Natalie Chan at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/scien...ilky-way
 
[medium confidence – early-stage] “Early stem-cell study suggests a possible stroke-repair pathway” by Genevieve Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/scien...gh-study
 
[speculative – philosophical] “Essay argues for a unified view of consciousness” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/the-s...-are-one
 
[high confidence – course material] “Stanford CS336: Language Modeling from Scratch” by Cecile G. Tamura at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/stanf...-scratch
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Tailored drinks could provide space nutrition” by Laurence Tognetti at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/tailo...utrition
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Study proposes a mechanism for a gene linked to lower Alzheimer’s risk” by Quinn Sena at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/this-...know-why
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Tiny frozen world unexpectedly appears to have an atmosphere” by Shubham Ghosh Roy at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/tiny-...mosphere
 
[high confidence – measured trend] “Training compute of frontier AI models grows by 4–5x per year” by Logan Thrasher Collins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/train...per-year
 
[speculative – theoretical proposal] “Model proposes the universe may have a rotational component” by Josh Seeherman at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/the-u...spinning
 
[medium confidence – theoretical] “What neutron stars are made of, according to current models” by Jose Ruben Rodriguez Fuentes at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/what-...-made-of
 
[medium confidence – single study] “New study advances research on human tissue regeneration” by Shubham Ghosh Roy at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/04/what-...e-closer
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Research on individual variation in energy metabolism” by Michael LaTorra at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/why-s...ver-will
 
[medium confidence – company announcement] “Zuckerberg Trying to Simulate Human Biology at the Cellular Level” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/zucke...ar-level