Lifeboat Foundation

My new story for TechCrunch on why a new generation of kids might “really” love robots. What would Freud say?

Robots intrigue us. We all like them. But most of us don’t love them. That may dramatically change over the next 10 years as the “robot nanny” makes its way into our households.

In as little time as a decade, affordable robots that can bottle-feed babies, change diapers and put a child to sleep might be here. The human-machine bond that a new generation of kids grows up with may be unbreakable. We may end up literally loving our machines almost like we do our mothers and fathers.

Continue reading “What Are the Absolute Worst Cities to Work in Right Now?” »

More progress in repairing damage to the cornea which could have implications for aging research as well as for injury.

Media Contacts: Suzanne Day Media Relations, Mass. Eye and Ear 617−573−3897 [email protected]

New findings may pave the way for the development of pharmaceutical therapies to reverse corneal scarring

Continue reading “Researchers shed light on repair mechanism for severe corneal injuries” »

Interesting article that suggests Acne sufferers may live longer.

Spotty teenagers may have the last laugh over their peers with perfect skin after research found that those who suffer from acne are likely to live longer.

Their cells have a built-in protection against ageing which is likely to make them look better in later life, a study has found.

Continue reading “Acne sufferers live longer, research suggests” »

How we can use CRISPR/Cas9 to treat the processes of aging.

Oliver Medvedik, Cofounder of the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation and the Lifespan.io Crowdfunding platform, discusses the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system in depth and highlights how it may be used to help overcome the diseases and disabilities of aging. He also gives an overview of other promising areas in aging research, such as senescent cell-clearing drugs, or “senolytics”, and “augmentive” compounds that may help restore the body to youthful functionality.

Continue reading “CRISPR Cas9: Will it Cure Aging? — Talk” »

In Brief.

• Researchers underwent a massive study to estimate a person’s lifespan based on their biological age.
• The results could explain why, even if you lead a healthy life, you might still die before you turn 100.

Please sign this petition to the NIH to help get more funding for aging research.

Every year about two million Americans die of illnesses doctors cannot cure. Cancer afflicts 50% of men and 30% of women. Five hundred and ninety five thousand Americans will die of cancer this year. Millions get heart diseases, strokes, etc. Every year 1,612,552 Americans die of the top 8 illnesses that doctors are unable to cure. Over a 30-year period, 48,376,560 United States citizens will die of the top 8 illnesses. Let us not forget other disabling and potentially curable illnesses. How much is it worth to save them? We have the resources and opportunity to cure age-related disease.

History has shown that medical research actually saves money. We now spend three trillion two hundred billion dollars yearly for health care. The health care expenditures will increase as our population grows with more senior citizens.

Continue reading “Fund Medical Research to End Age-Related Disease” »

A strong rebuttle to the sick article in the Telegraph which attempts to discredit Zuckerberg and Chan and their commitment to curing diseases.

Science and progress hardly ever stop just because a few cuckoos think we’re going too far. That’s what I tell myself most of the times when I bump into depressingly ill-informed articles about ageing and the diseases of old age. I tell myself that the best thing to do is to just let such articles disappear into oblivion and not give them any extra visibility. However, if instead of a few cuckoos we’re faced with an army of cuckoos, then we’re in for troubles.

At the time of this writing, people who are in favour of or oppose rejuvenation aren’t many, and neither are those who know about it but don’t care. Quite likely, most people in the world haven’t even heard about it yet. What I fear is that, when the advent of rejuvenation biotechnologies will be close, people who oppose rejuvenation will do their best to persuade undecided ones that disease is better than health, and ultimately, provoke an us-vs-them conflict that could jeopardise the cause of rejuvenation. The best way to avoid that conflict is to convince as many people as possible to support rejuvenation biotechnologies before they even arrive, so that when they do, those who oppose them will only be a few cuckoos indeed and not an army. Exposing the intellectual misery of deathist arguments is indubitably a good way of reaching this goal; that’s why I chose to respond to this spectacularly stupid article, instead of just ignoring it.

Continue reading “A sickeningly bad idea indeed” »

Getting your head in the cloud.

Connecting the dots between transhumanism, veganism, and caring for animals. My new story for Vice Motherboard:

The answer is bewildering—and it probably won’t be satisfying to plant-loving people. Nonetheless, it will inevitably eliminate most human-caused animal deaths. The answer is transhumanism—the movement that aims to replace human biology with synthetic and machine parts.

You see, the most important goal of transhumanism is to try to overcome death with science and technology. Most cellular degeneration—otherwise known as aging and sickness—comes from the failing of cells. That failure is at least partially caused by the daily act of eating and drinking—of putting foreign objects into our bodies which cells have to consume or discard to try to create energy. Paraxdocially, it’s stressful and hard work for cells to endlessly do this just to live. A simple way to eliminate this Sisyphean task—all the steaks, chocolate donuts, bacon breakfasts, and even my favorite, scotch—is to get rid of human reliance on food and drink entirely.

Continue reading “The Next Step for Veganism Is Ditching Our Bodies and Digitizing Our Minds” »