Lifeboat Foundation

We talk to Mark O’Connell about transhumanism, the evolution of the human species and his Wellcome Book Prize-shortlisted book To Be A Machine.

Advocates of transhumanism face a similar choice today. One option is to take advantage of the advances in nanotechnologies, genetic engineering and other medical sciences to enhance the biological and mental functioning of human beings (never to go back). The other is to legislate to prevent these artificial changes from becoming an entrenched part of humanity, with all the implied coercive bio-medicine that would entail for the species.

We can either take advantage of advances in technology to enhance human beings (never to go back), or we can legislate to prevent this from happening.

Continue reading “Transhumanism: advances in technology could already put evolution into hyperdrive – but should they?” »

Researchers have identified a protein that is different between healthy and cancerous cells, offering a potential target for therapeutic interventions.

Abstract

Sorting nexins anchor trafficking machines to membranes by binding phospholipids. The paradigm of the superfamily is sorting nexin 3 (SNX3), which localizes to early endosomes by recognizing phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate (PI3P) to initiate retromer-mediated segregation of cargoes to the trans-Golgi network (TGN). Here we report the solution structure of full length human SNX3, and show that PI3P recognition is accompanied by bilayer insertion of a proximal loop in its extended Phox homology (PX) domain. Phosphoinositide (PIP) binding is completely blocked by cancer-linked phosphorylation of a conserved serine beside the stereospecific PI3P pocket. This “PIP-stop” releases endosomal SNX3 to the cytosol, and reveals how protein kinases control membrane assemblies. It constitutes a widespread regulatory element found across the PX superfamily and throughout evolution including of fungi and plants.

Continue reading “A Protein that Shows the Difference Between Cancer and Non-cancer Cells” »

Ann Donnelly was utterly confused the first time she examined her protein. On all counts, it behaved like an enzyme—a protein catalyst that speeds up biological reactions in cells. One could argue that enzymes, sculpted by eons of evolution, make life possible.

There was just one problem: her protein wasn’t evolved. It wasn’t even “natural.” It was, in fact, a completely artificial construct made with random sequences of DNA—something that’s never existed in nature before.

Donnelly was looking at the first artificial enzyme. An artificial protein that, by all accounts, should not be able to play nice with the intricate web of biochemical components and reactions that support life.

Continue reading “Enzyme Designed Entirely From Scratch Opens a World of Biological Possibility” »

There’s an unsettling premise at the heart of Joe Brewer’s life’s work.

Brewer is a change strategist dedicated to ensuring a thriving global civilization exists 100 years from now—and he believes this is becoming less likely every year. There’s rising instability in our fragile and rapidly changing biosphere, he says, and society is unlikely to escape harm.

“We are going through a period of planetary change, and there is a collapse dynamic that’s already happening. The global scale social complexity we have today is at risk, and we may lose it,” he told me in a conversation for Singularity Hub.

Continue reading “How ‘Cultural Evolution’ Can Give Us the Tools to Build Global-Scale Resilience” »

Entrepreneur Juan Enriquez describes a future in which we will be able to hack evolution and even alter our memories thanks to DNA manipulation.

A study on dozens of galaxies within several billion light years of our own has revealed black holes that far exceed our expectations on just how big these monsters can grow.

The discovery not only helps us better understand the evolution of our Universe’s building blocks, it leaves us with a new intriguing question – just how do black holes like these get to be so incredibly massive?

By now, the collapsed cores of massive stars known as black holes need no introduction. We’ve heard about their cosmic crashes rippling space-time, watched them belch, and expect to capture the closest look yet at their nature very soon.

Continue reading “Astronomers Just Found Some of The Most Massive Black Holes Discovered in Our Universe” »

By Eliott Edge

“It is possible for a computer to become conscious. Basically, we are that. We are data, computation, memory. So we are conscious computers in a sense.”

—Tom Campbell, NASA

If the universe is a computer simulation, virtual reality, or video game, then a few unusual conditions seem to necessarily fall out from that reading. One is what we call consciousness, the mind, is actually something like an artificial intelligence. If the universe is a computer simulation, we are all likely one form of AI or another. In fact, we might come from the same computer that is creating this simulated universe to begin with. If so then it stands to reason that we are virtual characters and virtual minds in a virtual universe.

Continue reading “We are already Artificial Intelligence” »

“My phone habits are, I’d like to think, better than most. I seldom take my phone out in company and it’s a rare site to see me scrolling through social media. But when I’m walking to or from work, standing in an elevator, or eating by myself, I’ll often be checking emails, texting friends, or reading articles.”

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