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Jan 23, 2017

Scientists want to give the world a second chance at Caspian tigers

Posted by in category: bioengineering

Or at least something close.

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Jan 23, 2017

China’s Growing Ambitions in Space

Posted by in categories: policy, space

While Trump works to set out a new policy for NASA, China is set to conduct a record number of launches this year.

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Jan 23, 2017

Improved Semisynthetic Organism Created

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

“You could produce artificial proteins with unnatural amino acids,” he proposed. But the artificial proteins could be “not just to prep, pull out the cell, and purify as a drug, but to work within the cell to bestow it with new functions,” he added.


Researchers generate an organism that can replicate artificial base pairs indefinitely.

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Jan 23, 2017

Yes, the Eerie Carl Sagan Prediction That’s Going Viral Is Real

Posted by in categories: employment, futurism

Did Carl Sagan really warn about a time in the future when manufacturing jobs would slip away, when the average person would have virtually no control over their political lives, and when we would all cling to superstitions? Yes, Sagan did predict just that. The screenshot you may have seen floating around social media is real. And plenty of people are worried that Carl was talking about our era.

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Jan 23, 2017

Asteroid Mining Sounds Hard, Right? You Don’t Know the Half of It

Posted by in category: space

Until asteroid mining companies can actually mine asteroids, they’re staying solvent by playing in Earth’s orbit.

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Jan 23, 2017

Living longer in a decrepit body would be bad

Posted by in categories: health, life extension

Answers to rejuvenation objections #1: The Tithonus Error.


We certainly agree on this one! Living longer when your body keeps falling apart would suck big time, but that is not what rejuvenation is about. In fact, it is about preventing that from happening, in the short and long runs alike.

I probably have made the above concept clear enough on the website as a whole, but then again dealing with it separately in the objections section may be a good idea. In case anyone hasn’t read the explanations on ageing and rejuvenation first and jumps directly to the answers to objections, they might not get the full picture and think we’re just trying to make people live longer without curing them of the ill health of old age.

The concern of more life in a sicker body is well illustrated by the greek myth of Tithonus. In short, Tithonus was a mortal who was in love with Eos, the titan of the dawn. She fancied him back, but they had a problem: As a deity, she was immortal, but Tithonus was not. One day he’d give up the ghost and their idilly would be broken. Thus, Eos pleaded with Zeus to make Tithonus immortal as well. Problem solved, right? Yeah, not really.

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Jan 23, 2017

Amazing Therapy Could Turn Cancer Into Zombie Cells Then Destroy Them

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Turning cancer cells into zombie cells then destroying them with senolytic therapy for a double whammy against cancer!


Using a combination of therapies to turn cancer cells into non-dividing zombie cells then destroying them with could soon become the way we treat cancer without the need for harsh chemotherapy.

#aging #cancer

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Jan 23, 2017

Energy is the new new internet

Posted by in categories: economics, energy, internet

If you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in energy, you should. We’ve seen this movie before. Spoiler alert: There’s massive economic opportunity ahead. How massive? Imagine standing in 1992, knowing that Google, Akamai, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, BuzzFeed and Uber lay ahead.

This time it’s the “enernet,” not the internet, that will transform our lives. The story is the same, though the players have changed.

Here’s the tee up. Across the country, incumbent network providers operate highly centralized networks in their respective cities. Then, scrappy local outfits start serving the market with innovative, distributed technology. These startups create competition, and a new network emerges atop the legacy network.

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Jan 23, 2017

Scientists have caught viruses talking to each other—and that could be the key to new anti-viral drugs

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The accidental discovery could offer new ways to build drugs to defeat viruses.

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Jan 22, 2017

Singularity CGI

Posted by in categories: media & arts, robotics/AI, singularity

Carrie Fisher just died but she will likely come back to life because the Singularity is Near and is bringing Singularity CGI with it!

Bringing the dead back to life

In the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One, five characters were brought back as they would have looked between episodes 3 and 4 of Star Wars. They were Princess Leia, Grand Moff Tarkin, Dr. Cornelius Evazan (who said “I have the death sentence on twelve systems” in episode 4), General Dodonna, and Mon Mothma. General Dodonna and Mon Mothma were brought back with the traditional method of using actors who looked similar to the original actors. The other three were brought back with CGI (computer-generated imagery), more specifically CGI enhanced with motion capture.

Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) created by computer in Rogue One (credit: Lucasfilm)

Grand Moff Tarkin created by computer in Rogue One (credit: Lucasfilm)
(He looks better because he had more screen time so they spent more money on him.)

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