Lifeboat News #288

• InfoPreserver
• AGI-26 Update
• RAADfest 2026 Update
• Chapters
• Books
• Papers
• Videos
• Blog
• Growing Membership

InfoPreserver

Read “Who Preserves Human Knowledge?: A global history of archives, oral traditions, institutions, and communities of practice” by our Frank D. Smith at https://lifeboat.com/pdfs/who.preserves...edge.pdf
 
This is for our InfoPreserver program at https://lifeboat.com/ex/infopreserver which will soon get a big upgrade.

AGI-26 Update

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, Trevor Buteau, David Eagleman, Arthur Franz, Ben Goertzel, Faezeh Habibi, Patrick Hammer, Daniel Hulme, Matt O. Iklé, Peter Isaev, Christian Lebiere, Gary Marcus, Alexander Ororbia, Alex Peake, Reza Rassool, Kennedy Schaal, Howard Schneider, and Alex Wissner-Gross will be speaking/participating.
 
Learn more at https://agi-conference.org

RAADfest 2026 Update

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, Valerie Orsoni, Elizabeth Parrish, and James Strole will be speaking.
 
Learn more at https://www.raadfest.com

Chapters

Read the chapter “The Future Body: Nano Bodybuilders of Tomorrow” by our Natasha Vita-More in Global Health Care Equivalency in the Age of Nanotechnology, Nanomedicine and Artificial Intelligence at https://amzn.to/4ovEuDa

Books

Read “The Birth of Business Genius: How Elite Leaders Build Identity, Clarity & Unbreakable Performance”, coauthored by our Maria Olon Tsaroucha at https://amzn.to/4bhjbjj
 
Read “Digital Minds 1.0: AI Welfare, Ethics, and Beyond”, by our Soenke Ziesche at https://amzn.to/4pF0iww
 
Read “The Future of Humanity (Third edition): From Global Civilization to Great Civilization”, by our Zhouying Jin at https://amzn.to/4x5m8vK
 
Read “Healthy Longevity: Policies and Practices”, edited by our Ilia Stambler at https://amzn.to/3RymMmj
 
Read “Honour And Shame: Mistreatment Of, Violence Against, And Attitudes Towards Women In The Developing World” by our Ruth Itzhaki at https://amzn.to/4pF0ZGi
 
Read “Invitation to Futurology: The Study of the Future” by our Alexandra Whittington at https://amzn.to/4c4d9mp
 
In Invitation to Futurology, Forbes-recognized futurist and University of Houston foresight faculty member Alexandra Whittington opens the door to one of the most practical — and most overlooked — disciplines in modern business and society: the systematic study of the future.
 
Drawing on more than a decade of teaching strategic foresight at the University of Houston’s renowned Foresight program — one of the only accredited foresight programs in the world — and years of advising Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and global organizations through her consulting, Alexandra brings academic rigor and real-world relevance together in an accessible, human-centered framework anyone can use.
 
Read “Nanomedical Device and Systems Design: Challenges, Possibilities, Visions”, edited by our Frank Boehm at https://amzn.to/4yB1C7Z
 
Read “Our Beloved Futures”, by our Aubrey Yee at https://amzn.to/4yCOOhv
 
This book was Winner of the Nautilus Book Prize 2025 Silver – Poetry (Lyric Prose) and American Writing Awards Finalist 2025.
 
In her stunning debut, futurist and author Aubrey Yee interweaves poetry, radical truth-telling, and timeless wisdom for personal and collective healing. With lyrical words and visionary insight, she guides you back to your essence — so you can shine fully and help co-create a brighter future.
 
Read “Post-Self: Journeys Beyond the Human Body” by our Roy Christopher at https://amzn.to/4fvQh0i
 
As the physical world continues to collapse around us, and we are faced with a particularly 21st-century kind of dread and dehumanization, Post-Self asks what such an escape from our bodies might look like, and what it might mean for the future of civilization.
 
Read “Resistance to Anti-CD20 Antibodies and Approaches for Their Reversal”, edited by our William C. Cho at https://amzn.to/4bWZX2E

Papers

Read “Abundanism: A New Philosophy for a Post-Scarcity World” by our Alvin W. Graylin at https://abundanist.substack.com/p/abundanism
 
Read “Central role of brain regulatory T cells in the inflammatory cascade in Alzheimer’s disease”, coauthored by our George Perry at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2412255121
 
Read the paper “A Conceptual Architecture for High-Acceleration Nuclear-Electric Space Propulsion Using Magnetically Coupled Plasma Propulsion and Liquid Metal Energy Recovery” by our Jere Brinkley at https://lifeboat.com/pdfs/nuclear-elect...sion.pdf
 
Read “Inverted-Mode Scanning Tunneling Microscopy for Atomically Precise Fabrication”, coauthored by our Damian G. Allis at https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.24431
 
Read “A Landscape of Consciousness” by our Robert Lawrence Kuhn at https://qspace.fqxi.org/news/165289/a-l...iousness
 
Read “The Moral Blind Spot in AI Governance: Risks of Large-Scale Suffering”, coauthored by our Jonathan Leighton at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm...=6949958
 
Read “Necroptosis in Down Syndrome”, coauthored by our Domenico Praticó at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13309616
 
Read “What the Devil?: The Seductions of Utopia in Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End” by our Michael E. Zimmerman at https://www.academia.edu/165423483/_Wha...oods_End
 
This essay interprets Clarke’s 1953 novel as a powerful allegory of seductive teleology: the Overlords arrive as apparent saviors who end war and scarcity and usher in a century of peace and abundance, only to reveal their devil-like forms and true purpose of preparing humanity’s children for absorption into a cosmic Overmind, thereby extinguishing the human species itself.
 
Michael links this structure to historical patterns and argues that the same logic reappears today in technological form through AGI and Singularity visions that treat humanity as a transitional stage to be transcended or erased.
 
Read “Why Space Is Becoming The Digital Backbone Of The Global Economy”, by our Shelli Brunswick at https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbest...-economy
 
Read “Women’s Legacy in Futures Studies”, coauthored by our Mara Di Berardo at https://futuresdigest.substack.com/p/wo...-studies

Videos

Watch “David Hanson’s Vision for Sentient Robots” with our David Hanson at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFCIEhlsozU

Blog

Daniel Ikechukwu joins our blog team with the post “The US Robot Import Ban Doesn’t Stop China — It Redirects It” at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/the-u...rects-it
 
Michael Jay Taylor joins our blog team with the post “Redox chemistry of early Earth and the origin of life” at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/05/redox...-of-life
 
Recent interesting blog posts include:
 
[high confidence – animal model] “3D-printed silk implant successfully regrows knee cartilage in rats” by Genevieve Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/3d-pr...-in-rats
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “EPFL reports an ultrafast pulsed laser integrated onto a photonic chip” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/a-hol...n-a-chip
 
[medium confidence – theoretical] “Researchers model a route to far longer-lived quantum states” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/a-qua...ur-grasp
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Rare stripped supernova exposes a star’s internal layer structure” by Natalie Chan at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/a-rar...n-secret
 
[speculative – theoretical proposal] “Mathematicians argue cosmological data can be fit without dark energy” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/a-uni...osmology
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “Activity-dependent protein synthesis in neurons requires microglial-metabolic coupling” by Shubham Ghosh Roy at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/activ...coupling
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, J Infection 2026] “Phase 1 trial finds AI-designed pan-coronavirus vaccine safe in 39 volunteers; protection not yet shown” by Quinn Sena at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/ai-de...an-trial
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “An AAV variant selected through NHP screens robustly transduces the brain and drives secreted protein expression in NHPs and mice” by Logan Thrasher Collins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/an-aa...and-mice
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Astrocytes can gain neural stem cell properties after brain injury” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/astro...n-injury
 
[medium confidence – early-stage] “Biohybrid microrobots combining stem cells and magnetoelectric nanoparticles tested for spinal-cord repair” by Shubham Ghosh Roy at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/biohy...articles
 
[high confidence – news report, 2026] “Canada’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All” by Scott Bleackley at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/canad...-for-all
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Nature Chemistry 2025] “Ribozyme copies RNA exponentially through freeze-thaw cycles, easing the strand-separation bottleneck” by Genevieve Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/chemi...-decades
 
[expert commentary] “Interview: Chris Hables Gray argues AI governance needs strong citizenship” by Nikola Danaylov at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/chris...izenship
 
[expert commentary] “Interview: David Brin on collective agency and the human future” by Nikola Danaylov at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/david...u-its-us
 
[high confidence – news report] “Discoveries: Short Takes on Cutting-Edge Research” by The Neuro-Network at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/disco...research
 
[speculative – theoretical] “Review argues systems from cells to stars sit near the edge of chaos” by Yuta Aoki at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/every...of-chaos
 
[high confidence – news report, 2026] “PepsiCo is running 35 driverless trucks in Arizona on Frito-Lay deliveries” by Cecile G. Tamura at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/exclu...ay-chips
 
[high confidence – news report, 2026] “Janelia winds down rodent work and launches a transparent-fish project” by Logan Thrasher Collins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/exclu...-project
 
[high confidence – news report, Jul 2026] “PRIMA retinal implant cleared for sale in Europe for advanced macular degeneration; US review pending” by Quinn Sena at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/eye-i...-for-use
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Frontiers: A woman in her eighties was 10 years into Alzheimer’s” by Michael LaTorra at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/front...zheimers
 
[expert commentary] “The Higgs boson” by Cecile G. Tamura at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/the-higgs-boson
 
[medium confidence – theoretical] “Jumping the clock: Engineering ageing in biomedicine” by Pascal Baranowska at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/jumpi...medicine
 
[speculative – philosophical] “Interview: Lincoln Cannon on whether science and religion conflict” by Nikola Danaylov at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/linco...imentary
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Study links cerebellar activity to better-preserved cognition in aging” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/the-l...ig-boost
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed] “Live imaging and multimodal profiling reveal transdifferentiation of a cochlear supporting cell subpopulation upon Notch inhibition” by Cecile G. Tamura at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/live-...hibition
 
[speculative – prediction] “Interview: longevity researcher predicts aging will become treatable” by Paul Battista at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/longe...the-goal
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Science Advances 2026] “Rockefeller prototype ion trap manipulates over a billion ions in parallel” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/mass-...-at-once
 
[medium confidence – theoretical] “Physicists propose recasting thermodynamics in the language of gauge theory” by Shubham Ghosh Roy at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/mathe...00-years
 
[medium confidence – company announcement] “Meta demonstrates a wrist-worn neural band as a mouse-and-keyboard replacement” by Quinn Sena at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/meta-...bracelet
 
[speculative – theoretical] “Researchers argue basal cognition extends to organisms without brains” by Dan Breeden at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/new-s...t-brains
 
[speculative – prediction, video commentary] “Video commentary: NVIDIA’s RTX Spark desktop compared with Apple Silicon” by Bruce Burke at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/nvidi...tx-spark
 
[speculative – prediction] “Predicting 2050: The Convergent Power of Emerging Technologies” by Chuck Brooks at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/predi...nologies
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Lab device converts CO2 and water into liquid fuel using sunlight, without batteries” by Jose Ruben Rodriguez Fuentes at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/scien...uid-fuel
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Optica 2026] “NTU Singapore generates optical skyrmions from a Poisson spot, without metamaterials” by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/scien...enomenon
 
[medium confidence – early-stage] “Early study reports a compound that improves muscle repair in aging tissue” by Pascal Baranowska at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/scien...e-repair
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Researchers engineer human cells to carry out logic operations” by Jose Ruben Rodriguez Fuentes at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/scien...omputers
 
[medium confidence – company announcement] “Startup demonstrates a nuclear microreactor on stage powering a desktop PC, and announces a 30MW closed-loop AI datacenter plan” by Genevieve Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/start...local-wa
 
[high confidence – news report, 2026] “The Strange Case of Elias Thorne, the Imaginary Man AI Chatbots Are Obsessed With” by Michael Jay Taylor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/the-s...sed-with
 
[expert commentary] “Vascular Control Of Aging And Regeneration (Featuring Anjali Kusumbe, PhD)” by Mike Lustgarten at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/vascu...umbe-phd
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Study finds damage to a cell’s structural scaffolding can leave it stronger” by Nicholi Avery at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/what-...stronger
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, IEEE EDL 2026] “Tohoku University and NIST fabricate a spintronic p-bit on silicon with standard CMOS processes” by Natalie Chan at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/world...omputers
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Study links the timing of the cardiac cycle to how the brain processes information” by The Neuro-Network at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/your-...ormation