Lifeboat News #289

• 14th IAASS Conference
• 2026 Asia-Pacific Healthy Longevity International Summit
• 2026 Biomarkers of Aging Conference
• 2026 Space Settlement Summit
• AICHE 2026 Update
• BICA 2026 Update
• International Longevity Summit 2026
• The Space Mindset
• Books
• Papers
• Articles
• Videos
• Blog
• Growing Membership

14th IAASS Conference

The 14th IAASS Conference will be held October 20–22 in Antibes, France. (IAASS is the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety.)
 
Our Melchor Antuñano, Stuart Eves, Bernard Foing, James Kass, Michael Kezirian, Kiran Krishnan, and Tommaso Sgobba will be speaking.
 
Learn more at https://www.iaassconference2026.org

2026 Asia-Pacific Healthy Longevity International Summit

The 2026 Asia-Pacific Healthy Longevity International Summit will be held October 1–4 in Hong Kong.
 
Our Nir Barzilai, Al Chalabi, David Ewing Duncan, Matt Kaeberlein, Andrea B. Maier, Manjit Sareen, Raghav Sehgal, Petr Sramek, and Brad Younggren will be speaking.
 
Learn more at https://www.apaclongevitysociety.org

2026 Biomarkers of Aging Conference

The 2026 Biomarkers of Aging Conference will be held October 5–6 at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, USA.
 
Our Dan Belsky, João Pedro de Magalhães, Allison Duettmann, Peter Fedichev, Vadim N. Gladyshev, Vera Gorbunova, Chiara Herzog, Steve Horvath, Macsue Jacques, Mahdi Moqri, and Vittorio Sebastiano will be speaking/participating.
 
Learn more at https://www.agingconsortium.org/2026-conference

2026 Space Settlement Summit

The 2026 Space Settlement Summit will be held October 25–26 in Orlando, Florida.
 
Our Zaheer Ali, Dale Amon, Peter Garretson, Michelle Hanlon, Phil Metzger, Rod Pyle, and Luisa Fernanda Zambrano-Marin will be speaking.
 
Learn more at https://spacesettlementsummit.nss.org

AICHE 2026 Update

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, Mohammed (Mo) Abouelsoud, Bill Faloon, Leo Igwe, Ósìnàkáchì Ákùmà Kálù, Ebénézer Njoh-Mouellé, Brenda Ramokopelwa, Gabriel Rothblatt, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Natasha Vita-More, and Carl Youngblood will be speaking/participating.
 
Learn more at https://www.transhumanistsafrica.org/AICHE2026

BICA 2026 Update

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, Sean Kugele, Unmesh Kurup, Christian Lebiere, James A. Reggia, Rafal Rzepka, Alexei Samsonovich, Ricardo Sanz, Howard Schneider, Max Talanov, and Pei Wang will be participating.
 
Learn more at https://www.bicaai.org

International Longevity Summit 2026

The International Longevity Summit 2026 will be held September 30–October 1 in Madrid, Spain.
 
Our María Blasco, José Luis Cordeiro, Francisco Mera Cordero, Aubrey de Grey, João Pedro de Magalhães, Ben Goertzel, Rodolfo Goya, Brian Kennedy, Caitlin Lewis, Felipe R. Debasa Navalpotro, Phil Newman, Ramón Risco, Anders Sandberg, Sergio M.L. Tarrero, Natasha Vita-More, Sabinije von Gaffke, and Michael West will be speaking/participating.
 
Learn more at https://longevitysummit.madrid

The Space Mindset

“The Space Mindset: Navigating Space Policy, Diplomacy, and Global Leadership” will be held September 23rd in Cyberspace.
 
This important virtual dialogue during the Science Summit at the United Nations General Assembly 2026 convenes an exceptional international panel of senior government officials, diplomats, space agency leaders, legal experts, and innovation pioneers to examine how space is reshaping global resilience. It is led by our Shelli Brunswick.
 
Learn more at https://event.sciencesummitnyc.org/list...tail/392

Books

Read “The Age of Artificial Intelligence” by our Subhash Kak at https://amzn.to/4z7sXPr
 
Read “Drug Repurposing in Cancer Therapy: Approaches and Applications”, coedited by our William C. Cho at https://amzn.to/45PyQDk
 
Read “The Five Connections: The People You Need To Discover To Grow And Scale Your Business” by our Simon Hedley at https://amzn.to/4qeqPkO
 
Read “Gagarin Readings: Unconventional Computing, Space Exploration and Origin of Life”, edited by our Andrew Adamatzky at https://amzn.to/4wSP4rh
 
Read “The Geometry of The Good: Ethics in a Relational Field” by our David Koepsell at https://amzn.to/4wLE1Qy
 
Read “Imagining After Capitalism” by our Andy Hines at https://amzn.to/4g5B4mG
 
Read “Natural Products Interactions on Genomes”, edited by our Siva G. Somasundaram at https://amzn.to/4bH7Vgm
 
Read “Playbook of Foresight: Designing Strategic Conversations for Transformation and Resilience” by our Victor V. Motti at https://amzn.to/4wqf8Jp

Papers

Read “AI-Powered Augmented Reality as a Threat Vector for Human Manipulation” by our Louis Rosenberg at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.18802
 
Read “Detection and imaging of chemicals and hidden explosives using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and deep learning”, coauthored by our Aydogan Ozcan at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377&...;02190-z
 
Read “Epigenetic information loss is a common feature of multiple diseases and aging”, coauthored by our Daniel Z. Bar at https://link.springer.com/article/10.10...;01767-7
 
Read “Post-prohibition changes in cannabis genetics” by our Caleb Chen at https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/2269/
 
Read “A soft magnetoelastic sensor to decode levels of fatigue”, coauthored by our Jun Chen at https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10700473
 
Read “Ultrastructural and Histological Cryopreservation of Mammalian Brains by Vitrification”, coauthored by our Gregory M. Fahy and Steven B. Harris at https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6489...702375v3

Articles

Read “The Age of Enchantment Redux” by our Ahmed Bouzid at https://lifeboat.com/pdfs/the.age.of.en...edux.pdf
 
Generative AI may reverse the defining sequence of modern civilization. The Enlightenment’s great achievement was the conviction that the world is intelligible — that mystery can be converted into explanation, and that understanding is what licenses action (observe, explain, predict, control, create). AI makes possible the opposite order: something is generated, tested, shown to work, and deployed, with explanation coming afterward or never. An AI-discovered drug might demonstrably cure a disease without anyone being able to say why.
 
The paradox: civilization becomes simultaneously more rational and more enchanted, knowing more while understanding less, with things seeming magical precisely because they work and no one can fully explain how.
 
Read “Facebook’s Quiet Confession: The Social Network Was a Lie” by our Nikola Danaylov at https://www.singularityweblog.com/socia...work-lie
 
Read “The Future Belongs to Microcompanies” by our Ahmed Bouzid at https://lifeboat.com/pdfs/the.future.be...nies.pdf
 
Read “The Great Reckoning Before the Reconnecting: Why the coming AI crash may be the best thing that ever happened to us” by our Alvin Wang Graylin at https://abundanist.substack.com/p/the-g...nnecting
 
Read “Opposite What Elon Musk Contends, Money Won’t Die of Abundance” by our Imran Khan at https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articl...473.html
 
Read “When Machines Think, Twenty Years Later” by our David Orban at https://davidorban.substack.com/p/when-...ty-years

Videos

Watch “The Fastship in my new submission for #FutureVisionXPRIZE” by our Alex Thatcher at https://youtu.be/0R7PLs-Bwaw
 
Watch “Meet Joe a #FutureVisionXPRIZE entry character” by our Alex Thatcher at https://youtu.be/YCknBr_ib2s
 
Watch “Meet Leese and Liam, characters for my #FutureVisionXPRIZE entry” by our Alex Thatcher at https://youtu.be/jh5SvoAt0so
 
Watch “Meet The Magazine Man and Plutonian Slush Surfers, more characters for my #FutureVisionXPRIZE entry” by our Alex Thatcher at https://youtu.be/4Md9NI2rtuw
 
Watch “The Pluto Cycler, a future we can have right now, the train we will need #FutureVisionXPRIZE” by our Alex Thatcher at https://youtu.be/1WsMhIfW6Ac
 
Watch “The Towship AKA Dragone, is the hero ship in my new submission for #FutureVisionXPRIZE” by our Alex Thatcher at https://youtu.be/0qkKrZK4rJU
 
Watch “What is a Siren’s Song in my #FutureVisionXPRIZE entry?” by our Alex Thatcher at https://youtu.be/kxcvP2gil-o

Blog

Recent interesting blog posts include:
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Nat Commun 2026] “A fully integrated smart ring for daily biochemical monitoring” by Michael Jay Taylor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/a-ful...nitoring
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Metacrystal panels demonstrated as a low-cost way to steer 6G signals around corners” by Chima Wisdom at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/a-low...-corners
 
[medium confidence – single study, contested] “A new study says homing pigeon livers act like compasses. Other experts aren’t so sure” by Shailesh Prasad at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/a-new...-so-sure
 
[high confidence – peer-reviewed, Science 2024] “A petavoxel fragment of human cerebral cortex reconstructed at nanoscale resolution” by Michael LaTorra at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/a-pet...solution
 
[high confidence – animal model, Nat Commun 2026] “One rapamycin dose temporarily eased autism-like symptoms in adult mice” by Arthur Brown at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/a-sin...in-hours
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “AI-generated electrolyte recipes match top lithium-metal battery performance in tests” by Shailesh Prasad at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/ai-ge...formance
 
[expert commentary] “Religious leaders warn about AI systems that speak in the name of God” by Nicholi Avery at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/ai-go...e-of-god
 
[expert commentary] “Analysis: AI leadership simulations surface a strategic deception problem” by Daniel Ikechukwu at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/ai-wo...-problem
 
[speculative – video commentary] “AIE Webinar — Making Horsegirls” by Ian Hale at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/aie-w...rsegirls
 
[speculative – project proposal] “DiGem – Digital Twin” by Paulus Kudyak at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/digem...tal-twin
 
[speculative – interview] “Interview: Dr. Dominique Darvas on The Bioreactor of Youth” by Montie Adkins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/dr-do...of-youth
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Fed study argues AI’s slow productivity gains fit a century-old pattern” by Michael LaTorra at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/fed-s...-pattern
 
[medium confidence – early-stage] “Designer protein therapies enter their first human trials” by Arthur Brown at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/first...ientists
 
[high confidence – institutional report] “Harvard Publishes a Longevity Report for the General Public” by Montie Adkins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/harva...l-public
 
[speculative – self-experiment, n=1] “Self-experiment: one person’s tracking of HDL from 28 to optimal range” by Mike Lustgarten at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/hdl-w...i-did-it
 
[speculative – video, contested physics] “Video: an animation depicting the solar system as a helical vortex” by Pascal Baranowska at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/the-h...a-vortex
 
[expert commentary] “How AI and quantum computing could reshape zero trust cybersecurity” by Chuck Brooks at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/how-a...security
 
[medium confidence – animal model] “A drug already tested in humans improved DNA repair in an Alzheimer’s mouse model” by The Neuro-Network at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/human...zheimers
 
[speculative – video commentary] “Video: claims of whole-body age reversal following first human dosing” by Shailesh Prasad at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/human...y-tissue
 
[high confidence – news report, 2024] “Japan’s tooth-regrowth antibody TRG-035 entered first-in-human safety trials” by Quinn Sena at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/japan...wth-drug
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Jumping-spider vision inspires a low-power 3D camera prototype” by Chima Wisdom at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/jumpi...d-camera
 
[high confidence – program announcement] “Lifeboat Foundation InfoPreserver” by Josh Seeherman at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/lifeb...reserver
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Moonquake seismic data used to infer subsurface lunar ice” by Laurence Tognetti at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/lunar...onquakes
 
[medium confidence – lab result] “Magnetic robots could help remove dangerous nanoplastics from water” by Yuta Aoki at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/magne...om-water
 
[expert commentary] “New Generation Of Intelligent Drones Defined By Technology Convergence” by Chuck Brooks at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/new-g...vergence
 
[speculative – prediction] “The New Gold Standard: When AI Tokens Become the Currency of the Future” by Bruce Burke at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/the-n...e-future
 
[expert commentary] “Interview: Trevor Martin of Mammoth Biosciences on next-generation CRISPR” by Ira S. Pastor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/the-n...sciences
 
[high confidence – organization profile] “The Planetary Society” by Eamon Everall at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/the-p...-society
 
[speculative – prediction, video commentary] “Ray Kurzweil Predicts AI Will Change Humanity Completely by 2030” by Dan Kummer at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/ray-k...-by-2030
 
[expert commentary] “Roundup of Interesting Research Papers #15” by Logan Thrasher Collins at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/round...apers-15
 
[expert commentary] “Samsung’s InHouse Robots Are A Chip Play, Not A Product” by Daniel Ikechukwu at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/samsu...-product
 
[medium confidence – news report] “Researchers use AI models to design new CRISPR gene editors” by Arthur Brown at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/scien...-with-ai
 
[medium confidence – single study] “Study proposes a molecular mechanism for anesthesia-induced unconsciousness” by Genevieve Klien at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/scien...iousness
 
[medium confidence – early-stage] “Space-grown plants proposed as a source of medicines for astronauts” by Laurence Tognetti at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/space...tronauts
 
[high confidence – news report, Jun 2026] “Space Renaissance International reports from COPUOS 69 in Vienna” by Adriano Autino at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/space...ienna-10
 
[high confidence – news report, Jun 2026] “SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Starfall Demo” by Kelvin Dafiaghor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/space...all-demo
 
[medium confidence – company announcement] “Startup claims oscillator-based AI hardware could cut energy use ~1,000x” by Jose Ruben Rodriguez Fuentes at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/start...omputing
 
[speculative – prediction] “They think FOOM is near” by Kelvin Dafiaghor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/they-...-is-near
 
[speculative – prediction] “Claims that a meteoritic metal could transform EV and submarine materials” by Yuta Aoki at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/this-...bmarines
 
[expert commentary] “Welcome to the Edge Device and AI OS Era” by Bruce Burke at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/06/welco...i-os-era
 
[medium confidence – news report] “What Happens When You Put an AI-Powered Banana Casino in a Monkey Reserve?” by Michael Jay Taylor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/08/what-...-reserve
 
[medium confidence – survey] “The World’s 20 Most Powerful AI Supercomputers” by Kelvin Dafiaghor at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2026/07/the-w...omputers