Lifeboat Foundation

Nice!!!! Plus, we must keep in mind advances are accelerating like never before because tech industry is helping us knock out 2 things under each program due to the new usage of synthetic bio in systems and hardware. Example, DNA storage, MSFT’s work in other Synbio is also streamlined to find a cure for diabetes, Google and its own Synbio work is also inherently able to be used to help find a cure for cancer, etc.

In Brief:

Continue reading “Stanford Scientist: We’ll Have A Century of Medical Advances in the Next Decade” »

The team of NASA, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), and online educational platform Future Engineers has been a lot of fun to follow over the last year. Their collaborative 3D Printing in Space Challenges have resulted in some amazing, ingenious inventions from children as young as five years old, all aimed at improving the daily lives of astronauts now and in the future, on the International Space Station and, one day, on Mars.

Continue reading “Mars Medical Challenge Asks Students to Design 3D Printable Items to Keep Astronauts Healthy on Mars” »

Exercise is a good idea if you want to live long enough to see new technologies arrive that could change how we age.

A fair amount of interesting research on the topic of exercise and aging passes by every month. Most is not really worth commenting on here, other than to reinforce the point that there is a very, very large body of evidence to link regular exercise with improved long-term health and reduced mortality. Since I did note a few items worth reading recently, I thought I’d bundle them together for today’s post as just such a reminder. In human studies the evidence for exercise tends to be a matter of correlation more often than causation, but the corresponding animal studies, in which researchers can put individuals into groups by level of exercise and observe the results across the life span of a cohort, leave no doubt as to the benefits provided by regular exercise. The results over the long term remain better than anything a basically healthy individual can obtain from medical science today, say to say, though that statement won’t be true for many more years given the progress being made towards rejuvenation therapies. You can’t exercise your way to ensuring a life span of 100 years, it isn’t that large of an effect, but the benefits that can be realized are available, reliable, and free. It makes sense to take advantage of them.

The high level summary of the present research community consensus on the health benefits of exercise is that it, like many things in health and medicine, appears to have a U-shaped dose-response curve with the 80/20 point somewhere around about or a little above the standard recommendations for half an hour to an hour a day of moderate aerobic exercise. While elite athletes are shown to live a few years longer than the rest of us, it remains unclear as to whether that is due to the large amount of physical exercise or due to the fact that more robust people — who would live longer anyway — tend to have a better shot at succeeding in the world of professional athletics. At the other end of the dose-response curve, the growing use of accelerometers in studies has demonstrated that even modest levels of exercise, such as infrequent gardening or cleaning or walking, have noticeable correlations with health and mortality.

Continue reading “A Selection of Recent Research on Exercise and Aging” »

The research group behind an effort to synthesize a human genome this week released more information about its plans, including a draft white paper with a timeline of how the research might go.

It’s the latest step in the ambitious project, originally named “Human Genome Project-Write,” which came to light after a May meeting to discuss the building of large genomes from off-the-shelf parts.

Within a year, the international group will select one small-scale research project to kick off the effort, and start a “major effort to engage with representative members of the public,” according to the draft road map. By year five, it will “shift into high gear” and start tackling the creation of entire genomes — maybe human or maybe not, depending on feedback.

SciWorks Radio is a production of 88.5 WFDD and SciWorks, the Science Center and Environmental Park of Forsyth County, located in Winston-Salem.

We’ve come a long way from stone tools. With great complexity, we manufacture things like jet airplanes, interplanetary probes, medical tools, and microprocessors. We build with a top-down approach, starting with a big picture concept which we then design and assemble in pieces.

Duke University professor of computer sciences, Dr. John Reif, notes that nature works from the bottom up to assemble complex structures in three dimensions.

My new story for Vice Motherboard on lessons learned running for President as a transhumanist. It’s also my endorsement of a ranked voting system:

Campaigning in Times Square.

With such overwhelming odds against my candidacy and tiny political party from the start, I chose to bypass the battle to get on state ballots and instead focus using media to move the transhumanism movement ahead. After all, only very rarely have third parties in America affected the outcome of the elections anyway. Like it or not, you are stuck with an elephant or a donkey-headed leader.

Continue reading “​What I Learned” »

Scientists in the US claim to have discovered a natural compound found in avocado, broccoli and cucumber that has “remarkable anti-ageing effects in mice” — and could also work on humans.

The researchers, who have started clinical trials involving a small group of people, said older mice given the compound, called NMN, in their water saw an array of beneficial effects.

Their level of physical activity increased, bone density and muscles improved, the immune system and liver performed better, their eyesight improved and they even lost weight.

Continue reading “Scientists discover elixir of youth — for mice — and begin tests on humans” »

There have been significant advances in developing new prostheses with a simple sense of touch, but researchers are looking to go further. Scientists and engineers are working on a way to provide prosthetic users and those suffering from spinal cord injuries with the ability to both feel and control their limbs or robotic replacements by means of directly stimulating the cortex of the brain.

For decades, a major goal of neuroscientists has been to develop new technologies to create more advanced prostheses or ways to help people who have suffered spinal cord injuries to regain the use of their limbs. Part of this has involved creating a means of sending brain signals to disconnected nerves in damaged limbs or to robotic prostheses, so they can be moved by thought, so control is simple and natural.

However, all this had only limited application because as well as being able to tell a robotic or natural limb to move, a sense of touch was also required, so the patient would know if something has been grasped properly or if the hand or arm is in the right position. Without this feedback, it’s very difficult to control an artificial limb properly even with constant concentration or computer assistance.

It might be a blue pill that makes you hallucinate in an entertaining way – and then another white pill that brings you back to normality, Reed Hastings said…

The future of TV might everyone taking hallucinogenic drugs, according to the head of Netflix.

The threats to the streaming TV company might not be Amazon or other streaming services, but instead “pharmacological” ways of entertaining people, Reed Hastings has said.

Continue reading “Future of TV could be pills that make people hallucinate television shows, Netflix boss says” »