Lifeboat Foundation

Playing God is a common objection to developing technologies to increase human lifespan and yet it is never used in relation to current therapies already available.

Here I’ll point out another of the articles going up at the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, this time on the topic of the naturalistic fallacy where it occurs in opposition to healthy life extension. Our community would like to build medical therapies that address the causes of aging, thereby ending age-related disease and greatly extending healthy human life spans. It has always surprised me to find that most people, at least initially, object to this goal. It seems perfectly and straightforwardly obvious to me that aging to death, suffering considerably along the way, is just as much a problem to be overcome as any other medical condition that causes pain and mortality. Yet opposition exists, and that opposition is one of the greatest challenges faced when raising funding and pushing forward with research and development of rejuvenation therapies.

When it comes to treating aging as a medical condition the naturalistic fallacy is voiced in this way: aging is natural, what is natural is good, and therefore we shouldn’t tamper with aging. If you look around at your houses, your computers, your modern medicine, and consider that such an objection is perhaps just a little late to the game, and hard to hold in a self-consistent manner, then you’re probably not alone. Notably, the same objection is rarely brought up when it comes to treating specific age-related diseases, or in the matter of therapies that already exist. People who are uncomfortable about radical changes to the course of aging and who speak out against the extension of human life are nonetheless almost all in favor of cancer research, treatments for heart disease, and an end to Alzheimer’s disease. Yet age-related diseases and aging are the same thing, the same forms of damage and dysfunction, only differing by degree and by the names they are given.

Continue reading “Addressing Naturalistic Objections to Extending Healthy Human Life Spans” »

The Cellage synthetic biology digest.

The field of synthetic biology holds the potential to treat a variety of aging processes and treat age-related diseases. Synthetic biology allows biologists to create new functions in cells by creating synthetic cellular programs and could allow us to combat age-related diseases in ways never before considered.

#aging #crowdfundthecure

Continue reading “Synthetic biology could combat the aging process” »

His vision is definitely achievable.

The future of airport transfer—in a pod.

World-renowned global futurist Dr. James Canton envisions hotel experiences that include supersonic travel and DNA-driven spa treatments, so what can we expect in the next decade? Canton, a former Apple Computer executive, author and social scientist, worked in conjunction with Hotels.com, to present the Hotels of the Future Study at a recent conference in San Francisco. In the study he describes hotels with everything from RoboButlers and virtual reality entertainment to hotel restaurants based on gourmet genomics and the emergence of neurotechnology to make sleep more refreshing. Canton, who has advised three White House Administrations and over 100 companies, believes these megatrends will shape the future of the hotel experience and that the RoboButler is the change we will most likely see first. Although, he also notes that plans are already underway for a supersonic hyperloop route from Los Angeles to New York City.

Continue reading “A World-Renowned Futurist Reveals The Hotel Of The Future” »

Pretty wild; blood infections in cattle may have a possible link to breast cancer in humans.

Meredith Frie, Michigan State University

Humans began domesticating animals for food over 10,000 years ago, cultivating a close relationship with animals over the following millennia. Like humans, animals can get sick, and sometimes infections pass between humans and animals. Some of these infections, like ringworm, are mostly harmless, while others, like bovine tuberculosis, are extremely serious.

But how do we find out if these infections pose a risk to humans? I study dairy cows infected with bovine leukemia virus (BLV), which is found in most of the dairy herds in the U.S. Scientists are trying to figure out if BLV infects humans and, if it does, whether there is a link between BLV and breast cancer.

Continue reading “Why we need to keep an eye on whether a blood infection in cattle is linked to breast cancer in humans” »

Very interesting read. The researchers created a completely artificial microscopic transport system mimicking the human body. With this technology we’re going to be able to address many areas of healthcare as well as some areas of AI.

Inspired by micro-scale motions of nature, a group of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, in Chennai, India, has developed a new design for transporting colloidal particles, tiny cargo suspended in substances such as fluids or gels, more rapidly than is currently possible by diffusion.

Fluid friction determines micro-scale inertia in fluid. This means, for instance, blood cells swimming within blood encounter roughly the same amount of drag that a human would experience attempting to swim through molasses.

Continue reading “New active filaments mimic biology to transport nano-cargo” »

Nice breakthrough.

A self-adjusting synthetic gene circuit senses and reverses insulin resistance in animal models of diabetes and obesity.

People with type 2 diabetes — an obesity-associated disease that is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide — develop insulin resistance. The condition can be counteracted by adiponectin, a cytokine secreted by adipocytes that promotes insulin sensitivity and regulates glucose metabolism via the receptors AdipoR1 and AdipoR2 (ref.). In fact, by mimicking adiponectin, the AdipoR-activating small molecule AdipoRon improves glucose and lipid metabolism in mice. Owing to the capacity of adipocytes to regulate insulin and glucose pathways, considerable efforts have been devoted to taking advantage of adiponectin for clinical applications. Writing in Nature Biomedical Engineering, Martin Fussenegger and colleagues demonstrate the therapeutic benefits of a self-adjusting synthetic gene circuit designed to sense and reverse insulin resistance in animal models of diabetes and obesity.

Continue reading “Synthetic gene circuits: Insulin self-regulation” »

Ever since Jules Verne and before — perhaps as early as the 5th century B.C. — writers, philosophers and scientists have brought fantasies to life about spaceships carrying humans to other planets, solar systems and galaxies.

Of all the potential targets, only the moon thus far has hosted Earthling “boots on the ground.” Next on most wish lists is Mars. NASA’s tentative schedule designates the first manned mission sometime around 2030.

Aside from the formidable task of designing a safe, efficient vehicle to transport people and supplies, such a mission — depending on the positions of the two planets and other logistics — would take in the neighborhood of nine months each way. Not only is that a long trip, but it would also expose the human body to ambient space radiation for close to a year. Can’t this travel time, many have asked, be cut down somehow?

Continue reading “Positron Dynamics Paves the Road to the Final Frontier” »

Machine learning is helping doctors diagnose things like genetic disorders, Alzheimer’s, and autism faster than ever before.

Inserting spider DNA into silkworms yields a tough fabric that’s far more flexible than Kevlar.

Spider silk is one of nature’s toughest substances, similar in strength to the Kevlar plastic found in bulletproof vests but much more flexible. Kraig Biocraft, a company out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, genetically altered silkworms to produce a fiber that’s similar to pure spider silk. Today, they announced an Army contract to test this so-called Dragon Silk for possible use in body armor.

There’s a reason that silk from worms is cheap but you can’t buy pajamas made from spider fabric: spiders are territorial and cannibalistic, which makes farming them for fabric production almost exorbitant.

Continue reading “The Army is Testing Genetically Engineered Spider Silk for Body Armor” »