Lifeboat Foundation

With China taking a strong lead in the militarization of the Final Frontier, the Air Force has announced it’s time for the US to catch up. Air Force Lieutenant General and President of Air University Steve Kwast says we need to change the way we look at space operations.

“Failure is not an option” is probably the most famous slogan to come out of NASA (apart from the closely related “Houston, we have a problem”). Those were the 1970s, though—this is a new age, with new rules. And according to Kwast, one of those rules should be “fail-first, fail-forward.” Even with rockets.

It’s all part of a new proposal Kwast is pushing called “Fast Space: Leveraging Ultra Low-Cost Space Access for 21st Century Challenges.”

There are many benefits to exercise and how it can reduce the impact of the aging process. We have previously talked about how even a moderate amount of gentle exercise, such as walking, dancing, and strength training, can improve health and reduce mortality.

New research suggests that even moderate levels of physical activity can reduce glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States, and which is most prevalent among the elderly.

The data presented by UCLA researchers at the 121st Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology showed that the most physically active people involved in a recent study have a 73 percent reduced risk of developing glaucoma compared to the least active.

Continue reading “Exercise May Help to Protect Your Eyesight” »

Every so often when talking about aging and eradicating age-related diseases someone will say there are other more important things that must be solved before we earn the right to live healthy and longer lives.

When you discuss any major issue, sooner or later someone will say it: there are more urgent issues than whatever it is you’re advocating for. Sometimes it may be true; other times, and probably most of the time, it’s a logical fallacy known as appeal to worse problems (or “not as bad as”, or even “fallacy of relative privation”).

For example, say you’ve got two issues, A and B, that cannot possibly be both dealt with at the same time; if A is life-threatening and B isn’t, well, then I think it’d make sense to reply “there are more urgent issues” to whoever suggests B should be taken care of first. However, all too often, this answer is abused to play down the importance of a problem that doesn’t happen to be one’s personal favourite—and yes, I’ve seen this happen with rejuvenation therapies.

Oldest tree found.

Fossilized trees from a much warmer era of Antarctic history could provide a basis for predictions about the planet’s warming future.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YJB3RpKZ8fs

The U.S. intelligence community is upping its early-stage investments in machine-learning companies — but Beijing is pouring in far more.

A trio of new investments in Silicon Valley machine-learning startups shows that the U.S. intelligence community is deeply interested in artificial intelligence. But China is investing even more in these kinds of U.S. companies, and that has experts and intelligence officials worried.

Continue reading “China and the CIA Are Competing to Fund Silicon Valley’s AI Startups” »

To mark the letter’s 25th anniversary, researchers have issued a bracing follow-up. In a communique published Monday in the journal BioScience, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries assess the world’s latest responses to various environmental threats. Once again, they find us sorely wanting.

In 1992, scientists warned humanity about a host of impending ecological disasters. A quarter-century later, most of them have gotten worse.

How far off is age reversal?

The simple answer is, I don’t know. Probably we’ll see the first dog trials in the next year or two. If that works, human trials are another two years away, and eight years before they’re done. Once you get a few going and succeeding it’s a positive feedback loop.

George Church Will Make Virus-Resistant Organisms, Transplant Pig Organs to Humans, and Reverse Aging An interview with one of the most prolific scientists on earth in his lab at Harvard Medical School Photography by Maciek Jasik.

Continue reading “George Church Will Make Virus-Proof Organisms, Transplant Pig Organs to Humans, and Reverse Aging” »

Guess who won:

IBM has been offering quantum computing as a cloud service since last year when it came out with a 5 qubit version of the advanced computers. Today, the company announced that it’s releasing 20-qubit quantum computers, quite a leap in just 18 months. A qubit is a single unit of quantum information.

The company also announced that IBM researchers had successfully built a 50 qubit prototype, which is the next milestone for quantum computing, but it’s unclear when we will see this commercially available.

While the earliest versions of IBM’s quantum computers were offered for free to build a community of users, and help educate people on programming and using these machines, today’s announcement is the first commercial offering. It will be available by the end of the year.

Continue reading “IBM makes 20 qubit quantum computing machine available as a cloud service” »