For Dijkstra, programming was closer to mathematics than to a craft. The goal wasn’t to “get a feel” for code. The goal was to reason about it rigorously, to understand why it works before discovering whether it works.
The second part of this talk pursues some of the scientific and educational consequences of the assumption that computers represent a radical novelty. In order to give this assumption clear contents, we have to be much more precise as to what we mean in this context by the adjective “radical”. We shall do so in the first part of this talk, in which we shall furthermore supply evidence in support of our assumption.
The usual way in which we plan today for tomorrow is in yesterday’s vocabulary. We do so, because we try to get away with the concepts we are familiar with and that have acquired their meanings in our past experience. Of course, the words and the concepts don’t quite fit because our future differs from our past, but then we stretch them a little bit. Linguists are quite familiar with the phenomenon that the meanings of words evolve over time, but also know that this is a slow and gradual process.
It is the most common way of trying to cope with novelty: by means of metaphors and analogies we try to link the new to the old, the novel to the familiar. Under sufficiently slow and gradual change, it works reasonably well; in the case of a sharp discontinuity, however, the method breaks down: though we may glorify it with the name “common sense”, our past experience is no longer relevant, the analogies become too shallow, and the metaphors become more misleading than illuminating. This is the situation that is characteristic for the “radical” novelty.
New LDL Drug Could Cure Heart Disease. Eli Lilly published Phase 1 data in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that a single IV infusion of a gene editing therapy called VERVE-102 lowered LDL cholesterol permanently. Well… the effect held for at least 18 months. Longevity Twitter immediately called it the cure for heart disease. The science is real. The hype is getting ahead of what the paper actually says. This episode walks through the Phase 1 Heart-2 trial — the data, the base-editing mechanism (which is NOT CRISPR), the one safety event nobody’s talking about, and how Eli Lilly’s CEO is publicly thinking about pricing a one-and-done cure.
HUME BODY POD DISCOUNT UP TO 50% OFF: Code: LSN20 https://humehealth.com/pages/hume-bod… Latte: https://longevitylatte.shop TIMESTAMPS 0:00 — Cold Open 1:41 — Sponsor: Hume Body Pod 2:53 — Intro: The Cholesterol Paradox 4:48 — How Statins Work 5:36 — PCSK9 Targeting 7:38 — How VERVE-102 Works 9:16 — The Results 12:16 — Other Drugs and Pricing 15:12 — Natural Alternatives 17:42 — Other One and Done Drugs 18:40 — Longevity Latte SOURCES & LINKS NEJM paper (Vafai, Täubel, Patel, Kathiresan et al.): https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056… Eli Lilly press release on Phase 1 Heart-2 data: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea… ClinicalTrials.gov Heart-2 trial entry (NCT06164730): https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT0… Verve Therapeutics FDA Fast Track designation announcement: https://vervetx.gcs-web.com/news-rele… Cohen and Hobbs 2006 NEJM paper (the foundational PCSK9 loss-of-function discovery): https://www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/.… Dave Ricks (Eli Lilly CEO) on Cheeky Pint with Patrick and John Collison: • Dave Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, on GLP-1s an… FOURIER trial (evolocumab cardiovascular outcomes): https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056… ODYSSEY OUTCOMES trial (alirocumab cardiovascular outcomes): https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056… PCSK9 LoF and diabetes (Mendelian randomization, Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/la… PCSK9 inhibition and diabetes risk review: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles… StatPearls overview of PCSK9 inhibitors: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB… Sardinia cholesterol paradox study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles… Statin pleiotropic effects review (mevalonate pathway): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti… Berberine as a nature-made PCSK9 inhibitor review: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti… Berberine for dyslipidaemias meta-analysis: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30466… Pomegranate juice, carotid IMT, and LDL oxidation (Aviram 3-year study): https://www.clinicalnutritionjournal… LATEST EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: [Ariel Garten / Muse headset interview YouTube URL] ABOUT LONGEVITY SCIENCE NEWS Longevity Science News covers the latest breakthroughs in anti-aging research, regenerative medicine, longevity biotech, and the science of extending human healthspan and lifespan. Hosted by Emmett Short. Disclaimer: This video is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified clinician before making health or treatment decisions. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS & BONUS CONTENT Patreon: https://patreon.com/u29506604?utm_med… YT Membership: / @longevitysciencenews PRODUCTION CREDITS Executive Producer – Keith Comito Host, Producer, Writer – Emmett Short.
I really liked Jacque Fresco. Not as a thinker I was supposed to admire, but as a person: the humor, the humility, the scientific curiosity still burning at 97.
That made the disagreements harder, not easier.
Fresco spent almost a century arguing one idea. We apply the methods of #science to engineering, to medicine, to flight. Then we run our economies and our politics on opinion, tradition, and the preferences of the financial elite.
He thought we had it exactly inverted. Rigor for the machines, guesswork for the humans.
“Technology was never the hard part. The harder question is what kind of society we want it to serve.”
John Nash was born on June 13, 1928, in Bluefield, West Virginia, a former coal town nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains. As a young boy, Nash was solitary, bookish, and introverted. His father, John Sr., was a quiet engineer with an incisive mind. His mother, Virginia, also intelligent, was a former teacher who had large dreams for her son, pushing him to read at four, learn Latin, and skip a grade at school.
The first hint of John Nash’s math talent came in fourth grade, when a teacher told Virginia that the boy couldn’t do the math. Virginia laughed, well aware that her son was going down his own path to solve the simple problems. In high school, John solved his teachers’ clunky proofs in just a few elegant steps. He was one of ten nationally awarded winners of the George Westinghose Award, which provided him with a full scholarship to the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He hopped from engineering to chemistry before discovering his passion: mathematics.
He was accepted into Princeton University, which at the time was to mathematicians what Detroit was, and still is, to cars. Nash first wowed his peers with an elegantly playable board game, which his peers dubbed “Nash,” but later reached the market as Hex. He then absorbed himself in one of the sexiest math fields of the day, game theory, which described strategies in competition, whether in card games or business. His deceptively simple doctoral thesis would later re-orient the field of economics, although no one, not even Nash, predicted its potential.
Sobek was born and raised in Argentina, but he also grew up at MIT over the course of three degrees and more than a decade. He first studied aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, then jumped to mechanical engineering as a graduate student, then moved to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where he worked under PhD advisors and MIT professors Martha Gray and Stephen Senturia. His thesis focused on a technique for quickly measuring optical properties of large numbers of biological cells.
“A lot of my learnings around microfabrication and materials chemistry ended up being really relevant for 1s1,” Sobek says. “A class that was very important to me was taught by Professor Amar Bose. I was a teaching assistant for him for a couple of semesters, and that had an incredible influence on my thinking.”
Following graduation, Sobek worked in microelectronics and microfluidics before founding his own company, Zymera, in 2004. The company developed deep-tissue imaging technology for detecting cancer and other serious diseases.
A study from Anglia Ruskin University showed that eye drops with oxysterol compound (VP1-001) may treat cataracts without surgery. The study’s results were published on May 2nd, 2022, in the peer-reviewed journal Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. A cataract is an eye disorder in which clouding of the eye lens worsens over time and disrupts the quality of vision. A cataract is a disorder in which the proteins in the lens accumulate & make a cluster or cloud. This cloud scatters light and significantly limits its transmission to the retina. Cataract is the most common cause of visual loss in the world. According to the report of WHO (10 August 2023), 17% of people are globally affected with vision impairment due to cataracts at age 40 or older. At present, cataract surgery is the only way for the treatment of cataracts. In this surgical procedure the hazy lens is replaced with an artificial intraocular lens. Including economical burdens, cataract surgery has many complications like inflammation, xerophthalmia macular oedema, and posterior capsular opacificationHowever, a few scientists at Anglia Ruskin University under the supervision of Prof. Barbara, Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Health, Education, Medicine, and Social Care, conducted optical tests on an oxysterol compound that is considered an anti-cataract drug. They prepared new eye drops that could get rid of cataracts without surgery. VP1-001 is a chemical that is in these drops. It works by repairing the protein clumps in the eye lens that make it cloudy. A single drop increased the lens’s clarity and focusing capacity when tested on mice with cataracts. The study’s results were published on May 2nd, 2022, in the peer-reviewed journal Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. Outcomes of optical tests with eye drops The outcomes were good: 61% of the eyes that were treated were better able to focus due to the improvement in the refractive index profiles 46% of them became clearer and more transparent. Results: This is a huge advance since it means that some cataracts might be able to be cured with drugs instead of surgery. But the drops didn’t work on all kinds of cataracts, so additional research is needed to find therapies that work for everyone. Moreover, these drops aren’t available for individuals now. More research is needed These drops aren’t available for individuals now, but this is a big step forward, especially in countries where eye surgery is hard to get. This study is a hope towards non-surgical treatment of cataracts with the oxysterol compound (VP1-001). Cataract surgery is a safe and effective solution, as it completely replaces the clouded lens with an artificial one. The oxysterol compound (VP1-001) is still in the preclinical stage and not approved for human use. It’s under clinical trials. Moreover, safety testing will be confirmed before public availability. 📌 Published in: Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science (May 2, 2022) by Anglia Ruskin University Frequently asked questions 1. What are the types of cataracts? Caract can be classified by many wayss; however, it can be categorised into three types, on the basis of cloud location/formation, that are Posterior subcapsular cataract Age-related cataracts. Cortical cataracts. Nuclear Cataracts. 2. What are the risk factors of cataracts? Age is the major factor of cataracts, especially at 40 or above. other factors include diabetes, smoking, obesity, hypersensitivity, excessive exposure to sunlight, eye injury or inflammation, etc. 3. Are there any eye drops or drugs to treat cataracts without surgery? As of now (2025), there is no approved eye drop or drug that can treat or reverse cataracts without surgery, but research at Anglia Ruskin University showed that the experimental drug VP1-001 (oxysterol-based eye drops) works as an anti-cataract in animal trials. 4. What are the complications of cataract surgery? Many complications, like inflammation, xerophthalmia, and macular oedema, can occur as post-surgical conditions. 5. What is the oxysterol compound VP1-001? Oxysterol compound VP1-001, also known as compound 29, has shown a significant effect on the treatment of cataracts in a trial on mice. It reduces the opaqueness of the lens that may occur due to risk factors like ageing & mutation. Premium SEO Backlinks
Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI and founder of Safe Superintelligence, says the scaling era from 2020 to 2025 is over, that pre-training will run out of data, and that the industry is back to pure research with more companies than ideas. He argues that AGI is the wrong target what is actually coming is a learning algorithm that can take any job, learn it on the fly, and merge that knowledge across millions of simultaneous instances in a way humans cannot, producing rapid economic growth that regulation is unlikely to stop.
He predicts that once AI becomes visibly powerful, frontier companies will become paranoid overnight and governments will scramble, and says the only thing worth building is an AI aligned to sentient life broadly — not human life alone — because the AI itself will be sentient and will vastly outnumber humans within 5 to 20 years.
📚 Sources cited in this video:
Safe Superintelligence Inc. – Company Overview https://ssi.inc.
⚠️ DISCLAIMER: This channel provides AI commentary and analysis for educational and informational purposes only. Views expressed by guests are their own and do not represent the positions of any company or institution. We encourage viewers to consult multiple sources and form their own conclusions. #ai #agi #artificialintelligence.
Roger Penrose and Brian Cox discuss how Roger got interested in physics, the Big Bang, and the role of beauty in mathematics.
Do you agree with Roger’s thoughts on string theory?
With a free trial, you can watch the full conversation NOW at https://iai.tv/video/our-future-theor… the Big Bang to the fabric of spacetime and the nature of consciousness, our core scientific assumptions frame how we understand and perceive reality. But there are many challenges to our current understanding. What if the very foundations of our theories are flawed? Should we reconsider our understanding? And how radically might our view of the universe have to change? Join Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize Laureate and winner of the Wolf prize, in collaboration with Stephen Hawking, with legendary physicist and science communicator, Brian Cox, to explore whether the flaws in our current theories are at some fundamental level insurmountable, or whether they can be extended or changed to overcome these challenges. #physics #cosmology #bigbang Awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on black holes, Roger Penrose is a world-renowned mathematician and physicist. In recent years, he has investigated the relationship between physics and the mind, famously arguing that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in solving the mysteries of human consciousness. Penrose has made numerous appearances on media such as BBC, Closer to Truth, and The Joe Rogan Experience. In 1994, he was knighted for his services to science. Famed for his poetic take on the cosmos, physicist and broadcaster Brian Cox has become one of the world’s most recognizable voices in science communication. A former musician turned particle physicist, Cox has played a key role in major experiments at CERN and the Large Hadron Collider, while also captivating millions through BBC series such as Wonders of the Universe, The Planets, and Forces of Nature. Cox has been showered with praise for his contributions, appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and is the recipient of the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and the Michael Faraday Prize. Beyond his work as a Royal Society professor of physics at the University of Manchester, Cox advocates for public scientific literacy and political responsibility in science funding. His style blends rigorous physics with a deep sense of awe — bringing relativity, entropy, and quantum theory into living rooms around the globe. His rare ability to fuse clarity with wonder has earned global acclaim. The Institute of Art and Ideas features videos and articles from cutting edge thinkers discussing the ideas that are shaping the world, from metaphysics to string theory, technology to democracy, aesthetics to genetics. Subscribe today! https://iai.tv/subscribe?utm_source=Y… 0:00 Intro 0:44 Brian Cox on how Roger Penrose inspired him 1:39 — Beauty in mathematics 3:00 — How Roger struggled with maths at school 6:51 — How Roger got interested in physics 9:27 — What theory is best for explaining the beginning of the universe? 12:12 — A key new discovery in cosmology 18:44 — The big bang is not quantum mechanical For debates and talks: https://iai.tv For articles: https://iai.tv/articles For courses: https://iai.tv/iai-academy/courses.
From the Big Bang to the fabric of spacetime and the nature of consciousness, our core scientific assumptions frame how we understand and perceive reality. But there are many challenges to our current understanding. What if the very foundations of our theories are flawed? Should we reconsider our understanding? And how radically might our view of the universe have to change? Join Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize Laureate and winner of the Wolf prize, in collaboration with Stephen Hawking, with legendary physicist and science communicator, Brian Cox, to explore whether the flaws in our current theories are at some fundamental level insurmountable, or whether they can be extended or changed to overcome these challenges.
#physics #cosmology #bigbang.
Awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on black holes, Roger Penrose is a world-renowned mathematician and physicist. In recent years, he has investigated the relationship between physics and the mind, famously arguing that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in solving the mysteries of human consciousness.
In this episode, developmental biologist Michael Levin and cognitive scientist Anna Ciaunica examine how cellular intelligence challenges our traditional understanding of consciousness. They explore how memory, embodiment, and our interactions with others fundamentally shape the self.
A huge thank you to Dina Rudick, a four-time Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker / journalist, who expertly aided this production at the last minute. You can find more about her work at https://www.anthemmultimedia.com. Definitely check out her films.
I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE
Almost 12 years ago, a 16-year-old girl named Stefanie wrote to me the night before her senior year of high school. She could not sleep. She was terrified of the Singularity. And she wanted to know what she could actually do about it.
I still get these messages. More of them than ever, in fact. The names change. The fear does not. If anything, in the age of frontier AI, autonomous agents, and accelerating capability, the desperation in young people’s voices has only deepened.
What struck me when I went back to read my reply was how little I wanted to change. The advice I gave Stefanie has, mostly, stood the test of time. So rather than rewrite it, I am simply reposting it. A few of the things I told her then, and would tell any anxious young person today:
Be unreasonable. The reasonable person adapts to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to herself. All progress depends on unreasonable people. Shaw was right.
Think in decades, not weeks. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Persistence will be your best friend and your biggest enemy.
Prepare to fail. It took Edison thousands of attempts to make the light bulb. What matters is not how many times you fall, but how long you are willing to endure.
