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Aug 14, 2017

Scientists rejuvenate old hearts

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

In the study, 22-month-old rats — who were considered old — received stem cells from four-month-old rats.

Across the board, all of them experienced improved heart function, improved their exercise capacity by an average of 20 percent, and regrew hair faster than rats that didn’t receive the cells.

They also demonstrated longer heart cell telomeres.

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Aug 14, 2017

Congratulations to the AgeMeter campaign (https://www.lifespan.io/agemeter/) for blasting past the half way mark to 55%, and also congratulations to you all for helping fund this important biomarker system, supported by Drs. George Church, Aubrey de Grey, and David Sinclair

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Let’s keep up the momentum and continue to show the world what power the crowd can have in standing up to age-related disease. # LifespanIO # CrowdfundTheCure.

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Aug 14, 2017

Zygote Review

Posted by in category: entertainment

Free to watch, but without a doubt it would STILL be worth it if you actually DID have to pay for it!


District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s new horror/sci-fi short film is masterfully made.

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Aug 14, 2017

Could the end of tooth decay be in sight?

Posted by in category: life extension

One of the more important things we can do for longevity is keeping our teeth clean and keeping decay at bay. It might sound strange at first, but it is true. The harm that bacteria causes, especially in the gums, can spread to other tissues and increase inflammation throughout the body.

Some studies show a strong correlation between harmful oral bacteria and mortality rates later in life[1]. The mouth is an easy point of entry for harmful bacteria to invade the body, so it makes sense that maintaining oral hygiene should be an essential part of your health and longevity strategy.

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Aug 14, 2017

This Economic Model Organized Asia for Decades. Now It’s Broken

Posted by in categories: economics, employment, food, robotics/AI, sustainability

Pan’s company is at the vanguard of a trend that could have devastating consequences for Asia’s poorest nations. Low-cost manufacturing of clothes, shoes, and the like was the first rung on the economic ladder that Japan, South Korea, China, and other countries used to climb out of poverty after World War II. For decades that process followed a familiar pattern: As the economies of the early movers shifted into more sophisticated industries such as electronics, poorer countries took their place in textiles, offering the cheap labor that low-tech factories traditionally required. Manufacturers got inexpensive goods to ship to Walmarts and Tescos around the world, and poor countries were able to provide mass industrial employment for the first time, giving citizens an alternative to toiling on farms.


Automation threatens to block the ascent of Asia’s poor. Civil unrest could follow.

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Aug 13, 2017

DeLorean (Aerospace) Is Making a Flying Car That Really Won’t Need Roads

Posted by in category: transportation

Paul DeLorean’s DR-7 VTOL aircraft is the latest entry in an increasingly crowded field.

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Aug 13, 2017

NASA ‘Cribs’: Tour an Astronaut Habitat for Mock Space Missions (Video)

Posted by in categories: food, habitats, space

Ever wonder how astronauts will live on other worlds? Welcome to the Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA, a habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston built to simulate the isolation of missions to deep space. You can take a tour of the HERA habitat with NASA interns in this new video in the style of the MTV series “Cribs.”

“HERA is a unique three-story habitat designed to serve as an analog for isolation, confinement, and remote conditions in exploration scenarios,” NASA officials explained in a video description. “This video gives a tour of where crew members live, work, sleep, and eat during the analog missions.”

Continue reading “NASA ‘Cribs’: Tour an Astronaut Habitat for Mock Space Missions (Video)” »

Aug 13, 2017

Extraordinary and poor

Posted by in category: finance

There is something romantic about disregarding financial realities to push the limit of understanding. At the same time, starting a family dragged me out of this romantic bubble and forced me to think hard about what my heart really wants. I am committed to both my family and my career, and I accept the challenges. To those who are planning a similar course, I hope you will also embrace the burden, and that with all the stress and doubts comes clarity about your choices in life.


“In the end, I may be too poor to achieve my career dreams.”

I do not want to complain about my postdoc salary. My institution pays better than most in the country. The website for incoming postdocs notes that the funding is meant to be enough to support a single trainee—and, indeed, the stipend would be sufficient if I were single. The problem is that my stipend must also support my wife, who was only able to start working a few months ago because of visa issues and is now earning a part-time salary; our two daughters, born while I was a Ph.D. student; and my mother-in-law. With the stunning rents in Silicon Valley and the cost of preschool for our older daughter, we are losing money every month. Financial support from my family in China is the only reason I can afford to continue following my dream.

Continue reading “Extraordinary and poor” »

Aug 13, 2017

Here’s How To Fix The Big Problems With Elon Musk’s Mars Spaceship

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

This week electrovehicle and space transit magnate Elon Musk unveiled his master plan for the human race to become “a multi-planetary species”, starting with travel to Mars. But while I know it’s an act of remarkable hubris for me to even say this, I believe SpaceX’s plans for their Interplanetary Transport System have some pretty glaring flaws. The good news is they are flaws that are easily corrected by applying some decades-old solutions from the American and Soviet space-faring experience.

After going over the system architecture and basic spacecraft design, I think there are places where the system can be made to use less fuel, reduce manufacturing complexity, increase crew room, deliver more payload, and more.

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Aug 12, 2017

The world’s best Dota 2 players just got destroyed by a killer AI from Elon Musk’s startup

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI

Tonight during Valve’s yearly Dota 2 tournament, a surprise segment introduced what could be the best new player in the world — a bot from Elon Musk-backed startup OpenAI. Engineers from the nonprofit say the bot learned enough to beat Dota 2 pros in just two weeks of real-time learning, though in that training period they say it amassed “lifetimes” of experience, likely using a neural network judging by the company’s prior efforts. Musk is hailing the achievement as the first time artificial intelligence has been able to beat pros in competitive e-sports.

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