Lifeboat Foundation

Cool story!

Biohackers push back as the scientific establishment charts a course through the ethics of genetic interference.

Check out their campaign on Lifespan.io only 5 days left!
https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/cellage-targeting-senescen…c-biology/

But between the jokes is the data. Bill and Melinda Gates sum up what has been achieved with their combined billions over the past decade in a series of big numbers, and end with the hope of reaching the magic zero – no more disease.

In letter to philanthropic partner Warren Buffett, the Gates define achievements from vaccines to lives saved – while still pushing for gains in infant mortality.

Team OB just won the Robotics for Good Award in Dubai. Over 1,600 technologies for good applied and after competing against the top 10 best assistive technologies the judges chose our bionic hands! Now we have the funding to push our hands through the final stages of medical testing and finally get them to everyone who needs one.

Smartphones are revolutionizing the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses, thanks to add-ons and apps that make their ubiquitous small screens into medical devices, researchers say.

“If you look at the camera, the flash, the microphone… they all are getting better and better,” said Shwetak Patel, engineering professor at the University of Washington.

“In fact the capabilities on those phones are as great as some of the specialized devices,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting this week.

Continue reading “Smartphones are revolutionizing medicine” »

Church mentioned human trials in 2 years a few months ago. this is the first I have seen him say that in 10 years the reversal of aging will be a reality. That’ll make me 55. Hurry.

While discussing creating a hybrid elephant — wooly mammoth using CRISPR genome editing, Harvard’s George Church predicted that reversal of aging will be a reality within ten years.

Nextbigfuture suspects that this could mean clearly reversing aging in mice cells as a proof in principle in ten years. But evidence suggests Church does mean full and significant aging reversal in humans within ten years. In March of 2016 Church said, aging should be thought of as a program that might be reversed, noting, “If we could take one of my skin cells and turn it into an embryo-like cell and turn it back into a skin cell it has reset almost all of the developmental indications of age. We have 65 gene therapies that are being test in mice and larger animals. If they go well we will go straight into human trials. That could be as little as two years…

Continue reading “George Church indicates reversal of aging will be a reality within ten years” »

For those interested in life extension and bionic / cyborg type enhancements, this CMU Robotics Institute Seminar gives an overview of the background and current developments in artificial vision. José Alain Sahel MD is a world leading ophthalmologist with a lengthy bio and numerous honors and appointments.

In the future, if you’re going blind, these sight restoration technologies may be used to remediate your vision loss.

Three major ideas are covered. 1) Implanting arrays of tiny 3-color LEDs under a failed retina to stimulate still-okay cells, and 2) using gene therapy to express a novel photoreceptor, borrowed from algae, to restore a form of sight to failed cells. These can be done together. Lots of studies in mice, primates, and humans. Some coverage is also given to 3) directly implanting electronics in the brain to send complete images to vision centers, but this is still at an early stage.

Continue reading “Artificial Vision, Artificial Retina, Optogenetics, José Alain Sahel MD, CMU RI Seminar” »

Scientists are developing ways to edit the DNA of tomorrow’s children. Should they stop before it’s too late?

Check out the CellAge campaign at Lifespan.io
https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/cellage-targeting-senescen…c-biology/