Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers have developed a technique that enables gene editing on neurons — something previously thought to be impossible. This new tool will present amazing new opportunities for neuroscience research.

Technologies designed for editing the human genome are transforming biomedical science and providing us with relatively simple ways to modify and edit genes. However, precision editing has not been possible for cells that have stopped dividing, including mature neurons. This has meant that gene editing has been of limited use in neurological research — until now. Researchers at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI) have created a new tool that allows, for the first time ever, precise genome editing in mature neurons. This relieves previous constraints and presents amazing new opportunities for neuroscience research.

Speaking of concerns, I’m a bit concerned that the discussion about what might go wrong or how to prevent this or that hypothetical problem might draw attention away from another, possibly even more important question: Why do we strive to make rejuvenation a reality? There’s not much point in doing something if it doesn’t yield any benefits, especially if that something requires as much hard work as this cause does; so, what are the expected benefits of rejuvenation?

The benefits are many; some are obvious, and some are less so. The ones I’ll discuss in this article are the ones I see as obvious—tangible, immediate benefits for the people undergoing rejuvenation.

Exercise is a sensible part of any personal health strategy, and a new study suggests that even low levels of walking are associated with lower mortality compared to inactivity[1].

U.S. public health guidelines recommend that adults engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of intense exercise per week. However, surveys show that only half of U.S. adults actually reach this ideal target level of activity. Worse than that, older adults are even less likely to reach these recommendations, with only 42% of people between the ages of 65 and 74 and 28% of people age 75 or over meeting this goal.

Walking is a great choice for exercise, as it is low impact, convenient, free to do, and requires no special equipment. It is the most common kind of physical activity and is associated with a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes. While there are many studies that have focused on moderate to intense physical activity and mortality, there are considerably fewer studies looking at walking.

Company will use algorithm similar to new Go champ to find proteins.

I often hear the claim that death is a statistical certainty. This is my mathematical take at why this is not true, assuming the defeat of ageing, and no, being immortal is not required.

If a fully rejuvenated person was hit by a train at full speed, I can promise you they would stand the same pathetically low chances of ever being reassembled into a single, barely functional piece as any non-rejuvenated person of any age. Keeping that in mind, if anyone tried to sell me rejuvenation as ‘immortality’, rest assured I would demand to see the manager right away.

On a different yet unexpectedly related note, if I had a nickel for every time I heard or read something along the lines of ‘death is inevitable because probability’, I could donate so much money to LEAF the IRS would start thinking they’re a bit too well off for a charity.

Continue reading “Mathematics, rejuvenation, and immortality walk into a bar…” »

Whenever the topic of increasing human lifespan is discussed the concern is sometimes raised that a longer life would mean a life spent frail and decrepit. This is sometimes known as the Tithonus error and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the aims of rejuvenation biotechnology. The concern is based on the ancient Greek myth of Tithonus which might be thought of as a cautionary tale warning seekers of an eternal life of its alleged inherent dangers.

This is the second part of our ongoing series of articles that discuss the Hallmarks of Aging. Published in 2013, the paper divides aging into a number of distinct categories (“hallmarks”) of damage to explain how the aging process works and how it causes age-related diseases[1].

Today, we will be looking at one of the primary hallmarks, epigenetic alterations.

Describes the epigenetic role in aging, cancer and disease as well as drugs that are targeting the epigenome.

Our epigenome plays a role in aging and also in diseases like cancer and diabetes. Scientists have developed epigenome-targeting cancer drugs.

One of the secrets to making tiny laser devices such as opthalmic surgery scalpels work even more efficiently is the use of tiny semiconductor particles, called quantum dots. In new research at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Nanotech Team, the ~nanometer-sized dots are being doctored, or “doped,” with additional electrons, a treatment that nudges the dots ever closer to producing the desired laser light with less stimulation and energy loss.

“When we properly tailor the compositional profile within the particles during their fabrication, and then inject two or more electrons in each dot, they become more able to emit laser light. Importantly, they require considerably less power to initiate the lasing action,” said Victor Klimov, leader of the Nanotech team.

In order to force a material to emit laser light one has to work toward a “population inversion,” that is, making the number of electrons in a higher-energy electronic state exceed the number that are in a lower-energy state. To achieve this condition normally, one applies an external stimulus (optical or electrical) of a certain power, which should exceed a critical value termed the “optical-gain threshold.” In a recent paradigm-changing advance, Los Alamos researchers demonstrated that by adding extra electrons into their specially designed quantum dots, they can reduce this threshold to virtually zero.

Continue reading “Chemical treatment improves quantum dot lasers” »