Lifeboat Foundation

Very excited to have interviewed Dr. Michael Lustgarten in my role as longevity / aging ambassador for the ideaXme Show — Mike has been at the forefront of studying the 100 trillion organisms present in the human microbiome, their effect on human health and wellness, as well as a major proponent of metabolomics and biologic age tracking — A true future thinker in the area of extending human lifespan and healthspan

“Ruth is a shining example of one of the qualities I most admire in a scientist: dogged perseverance in pursuit of one’s thesis, in spite of near-universal rejection of it by the mainstream community, until one finally wins them round.

It’s only an admirable quality if you’re likely to be right, of course, so you’d better be a really good scientist in other ways too — and she sure is. Ruth spoke at a couple of my Cambridge conferences and I was always dismayed that such solid data and logic concerning the involvement of herpes simplex virus in Alzheimer’s disease was so widely ignored or dismissed for what seemed to be totally flimsy reasons. That’s not happening any more!”, says Aubrey de Grey.

https://www.undoing-aging.org/news/dr-ruth-itzhaki-to-speak-…aging-2019

The longevity industry gets a boost with the launch of a $100 million venture fund, Longevity Vision Fund, focused on longevity biotechnology and artificial intelligence. The fund will invest in infrastructure projects enabling the longevity biotechnology industry.

https://stanford.io/2RrRqbT

If highly repetitive gene-regulating sequences in DNA are easily lost, then that may explain why some adaptations evolve quickly and repeatedly.

The scientists who developed the revolutionary gene-editing system known as CRISPR are improving it with new tools that make it work better.

Over the last decade, military theorists and authors in the fields of future warfare and strategy have examined in detail the potential impacts of an ongoing revolution in information technology. There has been a particular focus on the impacts of automation and artificial intelligence on military and national security affairs. This attention on silicon-based disruption has nonetheless meant that sufficient attention may not have been paid to other equally profound technological developments. One of those developments is the field of biotechnology.

There have been some breathtaking achievements in the biological realm over the last decade. Human genome sequencing has progressed from a multi-year and multi-billion dollar undertaking to a much cheaper and quicker process, far outstripping Moore’s Law. Just as those concerned with national security affairs must monitor disruptive silicon-based technologies, leaders must also be literate in the key biological issues likely to impact the future security of nations. One of the most significant matters in biotechnology is that of human augmentation and whether nations should augment military personnel to stay at the leading edge of capability.

Military institutions will continue to seek competitive advantage over potential adversaries. While this is most obvious in the procurement of advanced platforms, human biotechnological advancement is gaining more attention. As a 2017 CSIS report on the Third Offset found most new technological advances will provide only a temporary advantage, assessed to be no more than five years. In this environment, some military institutions may view the newer field of human augmentation as a more significant source of a future competitive edge.

Continue reading “Biotechnology and Human Augmentation” »

Commentary

The crime scene was straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. One hundred and fifty dead birds lay sprawled on the ground, fallen out of trees in a park in The Hague, The Netherlands.

The second such occurrence last autumn made Dutch citizens look up and wonder. With robust starlings turned upside-down at their feet, the usual suspects of disease, pollution, and foul play were dismissed.

Continue reading “The Threat 5G Poses to Human Health” »

Stem cell research may be controversial but it’s showing incredible promise in treating a number of long-incurable diseases. The latest target for scientists working with stem cells is type 1 diabetes, and a new study reveals that it’s possible to convert stem cells into cells capable of producing insulin, potentially opening the door to a cure.

The goal which the scientists are rapidly working towards is to be able to replace insulin-producing cells in individuals who have type 1 diabetes. In diabetes patients those cells are often destroyed when the person is young, requiring that they monitor their blood sugar levels and take insulin to manage the disease.