Lifeboat Foundation

In a world without ageing, our idea of family will likely change—for the better.

So it would, and I’m looking forward to it.

As things stand, this is what happens to a human family in a nutshell. Two people start dating. If things go well, they may want to live together and have kids. The kids grow up and do the same, eventually, and the original parents become grandparents, generally around the time they start being elderly. Unfortunately, this means they are less and less able to take care of themselves (let alone their grandchildren), and thus are more of a burden than a helping hand. (Talk to people who are around 60 and have kids, and you’ll find out their worst concern is being a burden to their families the moment they’re no longer able to take care of themselves.)

Grandparents eventually die. Repeat the process for enough generations, and eventually the members of the original family will all have died—the family is dismantled. Maybe other families originated from it, but it is irrelevant. The people are what matters to us, not their genes. Genes will be passed on, but all the people in the process will die, and become just a carrier for the genes. Looks like we really should have read the fine print before signing up for life, eh?

Continue reading “Rejuvenation would change our concept of family” »

The Cosmologist and Physicist, Stephen Hawking said he will leave the Earth to travel to space onboard Richard Branson’s spaceship, The Independent reported.

Professor Hawking told Good Morning Britain that he’d never dreamed he’d be able to head into space. But “Richard Branson has offered me a seat on Virgin Galactic, and I said yes immediately”, he said.

Richard Branson’s spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, hopes soon to carry people into space on commercial missions.

Here’s a new 40-minute podcast interview I did with site Lions of Liberty. Lots of transhumanism in it.

In today’s episode of Lions of Liberty, Marc welcomes in the founder of the Transhumanist Party and 2018 Libertarian candidate for the California Governorship, Zoltan Istvan!

In the show, you’ll hear:

Billionaire Jeff Bezos can now tick piloting a massive mechanical robot off of his bucket list.

Toronto-based eSight Corp. has launched a pair of electronic glasses that allow the legally blind to see. The eSight3 glasses use high-tech image processing to give those who are legally blind the chance to experience what it is like to have 20/20 vision.

Users can control a variety of functions that are important for vision, including magnification, contrast, brightness and focus. Videos projected onto two OLED screens in front of the eyes allow the user to see the different functions in action.

Continue reading “These new electronic glasses allow the legally blind to see” »

A popular science article discussing the imminent arrival of senescent cell removing therapies.

Imagine a world where you could take just a single pill for the treatment or prevention of several age-related diseases. Although still in the realms of science fiction, accumulating scientific data now suggests that despite their biological differences a variety of these diseases share a common cause: senescent cells. This has led scientists to find drugs that can destroy these cells.

When cells become damaged, they either self-destruct (apoptosis) or they lose their ability to grow and remain stuck within the body. These are the non-growing senescent cells that no longer carry out their tasks properly. They spew out chemicals that cause damage to cells nearby, sometimes turning them into “zombies” – hence why they are sometimes referred to as “zombie cells”. Eventually, the damage builds up so much that the function of bodily organs and tissues, such as skin and muscle, becomes impaired. At this point, we identify the changes as disease.

Continue reading “Killing ‘zombie’ cells to improve health in old age” »

“SpaceX has applied to the FCC to launch 11,943 satellites into low-Earth orbit, providing “ubiquitous high-bandwidth (up to 1Gbps per user, once fully deployed) broadband services for consumers and businesses in the U.S. and globally,” according to FCC applications.”

Read more

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YwPUcG3eiFc

TechCrunch: “You’ll soon be coming home and a robot will greet you at the door.”

VentureBeat: “Read to kids, host video chats, take pictures, recognize faces and objects, connect to smart home devices, and secure the home by roaming around and video taping everything.”

Continue reading “The World’s First Personal Robot” »

Imagine a world where parents can give birth to superbabies with bones so strong they’re impervious to a surgical drill and a heart less prone to failure. A world where a child has DNA from three parents, not two. A world where it’s possible for a woman to have her favorite movie star’s child simply by collecting a few of his skin cells. Genetic technology is making it all a reality, horrifying some and heartening others.

Reproductive advances are arriving so rapidly, we’ve already entered the realm of science-fiction and are on the verge of making truly astounding leaps.

For more, look to the new book “The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids — and the Kids We Have” by Bonnie Rochman.

Continue reading “The terrifying DNA discoveries that are making science-fiction fact” »