Lifeboat Foundation

New research, published today in Nature, reveals how increasing brain stiffness as we age causes brain stem cell dysfunction, and demonstrates new ways to reverse older stem cells to a younger, healthier state.

The results have far reaching implications for how we understand the ageing process, and how we might develop much-needed treatments for age-related brain diseases.

As our bodies age, muscles and joints can become stiff, making everyday movements more difficult. This study shows the same is true in our brains, and that age-related brain stiffening has a significant impact on the function of brain stem cells.

DNA combined with the study of family history has been used to solve high-profile cold cases such as the Golden State Killer. Now, volunteers are using the technique to identify crime victims.

The groundwork for machine learning was laid down in the middle of last century. But increasingly powerful computers – harnessed to algorithms refined over the past decade – are driving an explosion of applications in everything from medical physics to materials, as Marric Stephens discovers.

In the future, we may have to deal with biological weapons that target specific groups of people, passing over everyone else.

That’s according to a new report out of Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk reviewed by The Telegraph. In it, the Cambridge researchers argue that world governments have failed to prepare for futuristic weapons based on advanced technology like artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation — or even a killer pathogen designed to kill only people of a particular race.

Today [August 13] the US National Academy of Sciences is hosting the first meeting of the International Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing in Washington, to discuss controversial applications of CRISPR to human eggs, sperm, or fertilized ova, in the wake of Chinese researcher He Jiankui announcing the birth of CRISPR twins after a similar meeting in 2017 (See Do China’s controversial CRISPR babies illustrate the need for an undo button?)

Although only one clinical trial is up-and-running for CRISPR to treat body cells, with an initial patient making the media rounds just last week to discuss her cells doctored to counter sickle cell disease, many other applications are in preclinical testing — animal models and human cells and organoids. And they’re not restricted to rare diseases.

Imagine a single injection that quells the inflammation behind lower back pain — perhaps forever. CRISPR may make that possible by dampening the immune system’s cytokine signals, according to a report in the July issue of Human Gene Therapy.

The technology that produced a global scandal in China last year has entered into clinical trials to treat sickle cell anemia and an eye disease.

Today, we’re releasing another keynote from Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019, our highly successful two-day conference that featured talks from leading researchers and investors, bringing them together to discuss the future of aging and rejuvenation biotechnology.

In his talk, Estimating the True Complexity of Comprehensive Rejuvenation, the famous Aubrey de Grey of SENS Research Foundation discussed the intricacies of creating a complete rejuvenation biotechnology framework, including the differing rates of age-related damage and the ramifications of the extensive crosstalk between different types of this damage.

New successes in printing vascular tissue from living cells point to the accelerating pace of development of 3D-printing tissue — and eventually the ability to manufacture organs from small samples of cells.

Late last month Prellis Biologics announced an $8.7 million round of funding and some significant advancements that point the way forward for 3D-printed organs while a company called Volumetric Bio based on research from a slew of different universities unveiled significant progress of its own earlier this year.

Continue reading “3D-printing organs moves a few more steps closer to commercialization” »

Nevertheless, to date, most of the wealth generated by advances in A.I. and robotics has been acquired by the executives of technology companies. It’s time for the benefits of the A.I. revolution to be broadly distributed through an expanded social safety net.

Unfortunately, members of Congress are taking the opposite path and have proposed cuts to a range of social programs. Several hundred thousand people arrived in Washington on Saturday to protest these cuts. During the demonstration, masked agitators threw rocks at the autonomous drones deployed for crowd control; in response, drones dispensed pepper spray on the protesters below, causing a stampede. More than 20 people were injured and treated at local hospitals; one protester died of his injuries on Monday. The police detained 35 people at the scene; 25 more arrests have been made since then, after authorities used facial recognition technology to identify protesters from surveillance video.

Punishing the poor who were harmed by economic disruptions has been a mistake repeated throughout American history. During the Industrial Revolution, machines displaced many artisans and agricultural workers. To deter these unemployed workers from seeking public relief, local governments set up poorhouses that required residents to perform hard labor. And between 1990 and 2020, the federal government — and some state governments — repeatedly cut social program spending even as middle-class jobs disappeared as a result of outsourcing and automation. Workers who didn’t have the skills to thrive in the knowledge economy were resigned to join the underclass of service workers.