Category Archives: Immortality Medicine

Amon Amarth have just announced their new album,The Great Heathen Army, and to coincide with this news, they've also debuted a music video for the new single "Get in the Ring," which features a cameo from AEW (All Elite Wrestling) star Erick Redbeard.

I really like 'Get In The Ring' which was written for our friend Erick Redbeard the pro wrestler as an 'entrance' song for him," comments guitarist Olavi Mikkonen on the latest Amon Amarth track. "The lyrics are obviously written to fit both Viking and wrestling themes," he continues, "and you can also see Erick as the lead character in the new video for the song. We shot the video in Wroclaw, Poland with our friends Grupa 13 and they helped us create this dark and epic Mad Max meets Viking underground super brutal fight club for the video clip."

Fans of Amon Amarth may be surprised to see modern-day visuals in the music video, such as gas-powered vehicles, heavy firearms, and industrialized buildings, but rest assured, this is very much the same Amon Amarth you've known for over 25 years. The group lays down burly rhythm riffs set against ever-present melodies that align perfectly with the thrill of one-on-one battle.

Speaking about the album, vocalist Johan Hegg says, Overall The Great Heathen Army is one of the heavier albums weve made. There are some dark and heavy songs that are really powerful and in-your-face, but we obviously have some trademark melodic Amon Amarth songs on there as well, and a few surprises too. Its a really well-balanced album. It sounds great. [Producer] Andy Sneap is awesome. It was great to be able to work with him again.

"Weve been away making new music and were back with new darker, more death-metal sounding album. If Berserker was our 'heavy metal' album, then The Great Heathen Army is our 'death metal' album. But with that said, its still very much contemporary Amon Amarth, but perhaps style-wise we have gone back to our roots a little bit," adds Mikkonen.

Watch the music video for "Get In the Ring" below and view the album art and track listing forThe Great Heathen Army, due Aug. 5 on Metal Blade, further down the page. To pre-order the album, head here.

You smile at me through lying teethThen you talk behind my backYou think I'm blind,thatI don't seeThemask you wear begins to crackYourwords bore me to deathYou're a wasp without a stingWhen you're done wasting breathYou can find me in the ring

Bring it onIf you dareWill you runAre you scared

I'm waiting here so come at meLet's fight it out man to manIf you flee your fate is sealedGet in the ring, make your stand

The coward thinks he'll always liveIf he keeps himself from strifeBut old age leaves him not in peaceThough spars may spare his lifeThe fool thinks that h knows it allWhile he sits in sheltered nestLost for words when reality callsAs he's put to the test

Your slander shows your inner fearHiding behind words of spiteBut the Heathen law is clearI challenge you to a fightChoose blade, sword or axeIt doesn't matter what you bringWhen the sun begins to waxCome find me in the ring

Bring it onNowhere to hideTime to faceYour demise

I'm waiting here so come at meLet's fight it out man to manIf you flee your fate is sealedYou'll die by my hand

You're a dog without a biteAnd your taunts are uninspiredIt's better that you stand and fight'Cause if you run you'll only die tired

Amon Amarth, 'The Great Heathen Army'

01. "Get in the Ring"02. "The Great Heathen Army"03. "Heidrun"04. "Oden Owns You All"05. "Find a Way or Make One"06. "Dawn of Norsemen"07. "Saxon and Vikings"08. "Skagul Rides With Me"09. "The Serpent's Trail"

See Loudwire's picks for the Best Metal Album of Each Year Since 1970

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Wrestling Star Joins the Fight in Amon Amarth's 'Get in the Ring' Video, New Album Announced - Loudwire

Humans have been extracting the healing properties of plants for thousands of years. Although herbal remedies are often discounted as unscientific, more than one-third of modern drugs are derived either directly or indirectly from natural products, such as plants, microorganisms and animals.

Now, researchers from the Scripps Research Institute in the US state of California have found that a chemical extracted from the bark of the Galbulimima belgraveana tree has psychotropic effects that could help treat depression and anxiety.

The tree is found only in remote rainforests of Papua New Guinea and northern Australia and has long been used by indigenous people as a healing remedy against pain and fever.

ALSO READ | Herbal drug based adjuvant therapy effective in treating diabetic Covid-19 patients: Researchers

"This goes to show that Western medicine hasn't cornered the market on new therapeutics; there are traditional medicines out there still waiting to be studied, senior author Ryan Shenvi, PhD, a professor of chemistry at Scripps Research, told reporters last week.

Which other medical drugs are found in plants?

The most well-known example of a medical drug extracted from a plant species is opium, which has been used to treat pain for over 4,000 years. Opiates like morphine and codeine are extracted from the opium poppy and have a powerful effect on the central nervous system.

But which other ancient plant-based medicines have demonstrable medical benefits, and what is the science behind them?

Velvet beans treat Parkinson's disease

The velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) has been used in ancient Indian Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine for over 3,000 years. Ancient texts tell us how healers used bean extracts to reduce tremors in patients to treat the condition we now consider Parkinson's disease.

Studies now show that the velvet bean contains a compound called levodopa, a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease today.

Levodopa helps to stop tremors by increasing dopamine signals in areas of the brain that control movement.

The modern history of levodopa began in the early 20th century when the compound was synthesized by the Polish biochemist Casimir Funk. Decades later, in the 1960s, scientists found that levodopa could be used as an effective treatment to stop tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease. The drug revolutionized the treatment of the disease and is still the gold standard for its treatment today.

Hawthorn could be a future treatment for cardiovascular disease

The medical properties of hawthorn (Crataegus spp) were first noted by Greek physician Dioscorides in the 1st century and by Tang-Ben-Cao in ancient Chinese medicine in the 7th century.

Clinical trials using current research standards have found that hawthorn reduces blood pressure and may be useful to treat cardiovascular disease. Hawthorn berries contain compounds such as bioflavonoids and proanthocyanidins that appear to have significant antioxidant activity.

Hawthorn extracts aren't yet suitable for medical use in the wider public studies are ongoing, and more rigorous research is needed to assess the long-term safety of using the extracts to treat diseases.

Pacific yew tree bark can fight cancer

Yew trees have a special place in medicine in European mythology. Most parts of the tree are very poisonous, causing associations with both death and immortality. The Third Witch in Macbeth mentions "slips of yew slivered in the moon's eclipse" (Macbeth Act 4, Scene 1).

But it's a species of yew tree in North America, the Pacific yew tree (Taxus brevifolia), that possesses the most beneficial medical properties.

Scientists in the 1960s found that the tree's bark contains compounds called taxels. One of these taxels, called Paclitaxel, has been developed into an effective cancer treatment drug. Paclitaxel can stop cancer cells from dividing, blocking further growth of the disease.

The wonder-drug sourced from Willow bark

Willow bark is another traditional medicine with a long history. The bark was adopted 4,000 years ago in ancient Sumer and Egypt to treat pain and has been a staple of medicine ever since.

Willow bark contains a compound called salicin, which would later form the basis of the discovery of aspirin the world's most widely taken drug.

Aspirin has several different medical benefits, including pain relief, reduction of fever and prevention of stroke. Its first widespread use was during the 1918 flu pandemic to treat high temperatures.

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Herbal medicines that really work - Hindustan Times

Humans have been extracting the healing properties of plants for thousands of years. Although herbal remedies are often discounted as unscientific, more than one-third of modern drugs are derived either directly or indirectly from natural products, such as plants, microorganisms and animals.

Now, researchers from the Scripps Research Institute in the USstate of California have found that a chemical extracted from the bark of the Galbulimima belgraveana tree has psychotropic effects that could help treat depression and anxiety.

The tree is found only in remote rainforests of Papua New Guinea and northern Australia and has long been used by indigenous people as a healing remedy against pain and fever.

"This goes to show that Western medicine hasn't cornered the market on new therapeutics; there are traditional medicines out there still waiting to be studied, senior author Ryan Shenvi, PhD, a professor of chemistry at Scripps Research, told reporters last week.

The most well-known example of a medical drug extracted from a plant species is opium, which has been used to treat pain for over 4,000 years. Opiates like morphine and codeine are extracted from the opium poppy and have a powerful effect on the central nervous system.

Afghan farmers collect raw opium in a poppy field

But which other ancient plant-based medicines have demonstrable medical benefits, and what is the science behind them?

The velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) has been used in ancient Indian Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine for over 3,000 years. Ancient texts tell us how healers used bean extracts to reduce tremors in patients to treat the condition we now consider Parkinson's disease.

Studies now show that the velvet bean contains a compound called levodopa, a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease today.

Levodopa helps to stop tremors by increasing dopamine signals in areas of the brain that control movement.

The modern history of levodopa began in the early 20th century when the compound was synthesized by the Polish biochemist Casimir Funk. Decades later, in the 1960s, scientists found that levodopa could be used as an effective treatment to stop tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease. The drug revolutionized the treatment of the disease and is still the gold standard for its treatment today.

Velvet beans contain chemical to help treat tremors caused by Parkinson's

The medical properties of hawthorn (Crataegus spp) were first noted by Greek physician Dioscorides in the 1st centuryand by Tang-Ben-Cao in ancient Chinese medicine in the 7th century.

Clinical trials using current research standards have found that hawthorn reduces blood pressure and may be useful to treat cardiovascular disease. Hawthorn berries contain compounds such as bioflavonoids and proanthocyanidins that appear to have significant antioxidant activity.

Hawthorn extracts aren't yet suitable for medical use in the wider public studies are ongoing, and more rigorous research is needed to assess the long-term safety of using the extracts to treat diseases.

Hawthorn berries taste a little like small apples and their extracts could help treat heart or blood diseases

Yew trees have a special place in medicine in European mythology. Most parts of the tree are very poisonous, causing associations with both death and immortality. The Third Witch in Macbeth mentions "slips of yew slivered in the moon's eclipse"(Macbeth Act 4, Scene 1).

But it's a species of yew tree in North America, the Pacific yew tree (Taxus brevifolia), that possesses the most beneficial medical properties.

Scientists in the 1960s found that the tree's bark contains compounds called taxels. One of these taxels, called Paclitaxel, has been developed into an effective cancer treatment drug. Paclitaxel can stop cancer cells from dividing, blocking further growth of the disease.

Pacific yew in the US state of Oregon

Willow bark is another traditional medicine with a long history. The bark was adopted 4,000 years ago in ancient Sumer and Egypt to treat pain and has been a staple of medicine ever since.

Willow bark contains a compound called salicin, which would later form the basis of the discovery of aspirin the world's most widely taken drug.

Aspirin has several different medical benefits, including pain relief, reduction of fever and prevention of stroke. Its first widespread use was during the 1918 flu pandemic to treat high temperatures.

Willow bark is generally found in the Northern Hemisphere

Edited by: Clare Roth

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Herbal medicines that really work - DW (English)

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. (AgeX; NYSE American: AGE), a biotechnology company developing therapeutics for human aging and regeneration, announced today that Dr. Joanne Hackett has been appointed Chairperson of AgeXs Board of Directors. Dr. Hackett joined the Board of Directors in December 2021. She will serve in a non-executive capacity as AgeXs Chairperson. Dr. Greg Bailey, who served as AgeXs Chairperson since 2018, will continue to serve as a member of AgeXs Board of Directors.

Dr. Hackett is the Head of Genomic and Precision Medicine at IQVIA, a world leader in using data, technology, advanced analytics, and expertise to help customers drive healthcare forward. From 2017 to 2020, Dr. Hackett served as Chief Commercial Officer of Genomics England, owned by the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom. During 2016 and 2017, Dr. Hackett served as Chief Commercial Officer and Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Precision Medicine Catapult, which was established in the United Kingdom with the goal of developing and commercializing precision medicine. Dr. Hackett holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of New Brunswick.

About AgeX Therapeutics

AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. (NYSE American: AGE) is focused on developing and commercializing innovative therapeutics to treat human diseases to increase healthspan and combat the effects of aging. AgeXs PureStem and UniverCyte manufacturing and immunotolerance technologies are designed to work together to generate highly defined, universal, allogeneic, off-the-shelf pluripotent stem cell-derived young cells of any type for application in a variety of diseases with a high unmet medical need. AgeX has two preclinical cell therapy programs: AGEX-VASC1 (vascular progenitor cells) for tissue ischemia and AGEX-BAT1 (brown fat cells) for Type II diabetes. AgeXs revolutionary longevity platform induced Tissue Regeneration (iTR) aims to unlock cellular immortality and regenerative capacity to reverse age-related changes within tissues. HyStem is AgeXs delivery technology to stably engraft PureStem or other cell therapies in the body. AgeX is seeking opportunities to establish licensing and collaboration arrangements around its broad IP estate and proprietary technology platforms and therapy product candidates.

For more information, please visit http://www.agexinc.com or connect with the company on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements that are not historical fact including, but not limited to statements that contain words such as will, believes, plans, anticipates, expects, estimates should also be considered forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements and as such should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect the business of AgeX Therapeutics, Inc. and its subsidiaries, particularly those mentioned in the cautionary statements found in more detail in the Risk Factors section of AgeXs most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commissions (copies of which may be obtained at http://www.sec.gov). Subsequent events and developments may cause these forward-looking statements to change. AgeX specifically disclaims any obligation or intention to update or revise these forward-looking statements as a result of changed events or circumstances that occur after the date of this release, except as required by applicable law.

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Dr. Joanne Hackett Appointed Chairperson of AgeX Board of Directors - Business Wire

Anna Julia Coopers collection of essays, A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South, published in 1892, identified the conflict over race as the central dilemma of her time, eleven years before W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line. Cooper argued that Americas domestic racial formation was intimately linked with international colonialism and that the exploitation and oppression experienced by Asian, Black and Indigenous peoples in the US were an integral part of the imperialist ideology of racial hierarchies. She questioned why dominant meant righteous, and carried with it a title to inherit the earth, and identified appeals to manifest destiny as an attempt to justify consigning to annihilation one-third of the inhabitants of the globe. Cooper also condemned the expansion of Western empires further into Asia and the Pacific. She believed, as Du Bois wrote, that the problem of the colour line was a matter of imperialism, the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.

A different strand of Black intellectual thought, focusing on racism and racist violence in the US as a product of domestic enslavement, developed almost simultaneously with the global account of imperialist and colonial exploitation proposed by Cooper and Du Bois. In 1904, Mary Church Terrell, one of the founders of the National Association of Coloured Women, published an essay which concluded that lynching is the aftermath of slavery. A year later, William A. Sinclair, who was born into enslavement, published The Aftermath of Slavery, a Study of the Condition and Environment of the American Negro. Terrell and Sinclair used the term aftermath to make the point that their own era was contiguous with the three hundred years during which people of African descent had been enslaved in America. Sinclair worked as a financial secretary at Howard University, had degrees in theology and medicine and greatly admired Queen Victoria, the British Empire and Rudyard Kipling. He believed that the blighting evils of his time, mobs that torture human beings and roast them alive without trial; mobs who shoot down women and children; mobs who take possession of the streets of cities, shooting down innocent coloured people and driving them from their homes; lynching and the reign of terror and blood perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan, were an affliction both to the white and the coloured people. He insisted that this violence was rooted in the barbarism of US slavery, an institution which, bad and debasing as it was for the negro, was probably even worse for whites for it stupefied their conscience twisted and perverted their moral conceptions. Sinclair did not mention the sufferings of Indigenous peoples at the hands of white settlers and military forces; consideration of Native Nations was excluded from his conceptual and historical framework.

The afterlife of slavery (sometimes hyphenated and sometimes plural) has become an increasingly influential way of thinking about Americas domestic slavery and its consequences in the present. In Lose Your Mother (2006), Saidiya Hartman uses the phrase to describe the complex relation between the current inequalities and skewed life chances that imperil and threaten Black life, and the racial calculus and political arithmetic entrenched in the system of enslavement. Hartman developed the term in the sophisticated historical analysis of her subsequent work, but it has now assumed an autonomous existence, which no longer requires us to understand that the ways in which race comes to acquire meaning are contingent on particular times, places, cultures and economies. The word afterlife assumes an intergenerational existence, but it also grants immortality to racial logic; the term connotes a world without end, and even has a supernatural quality that stretches back to the Curse of Ham.

The 1619 Project, which contains essays as well as poetry and fiction, offers a new origin story for the US, one that begins with the arrival of a ship in the British colony of Virginia with a cargo of twenty enslaved African people. The book itself is the culmination of a project by the New York Times Magazine, marking four hundred years since that first slave ship arrived in America. It attempted to show that the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic and citizenship, to capitalism, religion and our democracy itself. Though 1619 is an unconventional year in which to begin the national story, the projects aim to expose the roots of so much of what makes the country unique places it firmly within the conventional narrative of American exceptionalism.

The phrase the afterlife of slavery is often used in conjunction with antiblackness, a term that is also rarely interrogated, as if its meaning is obvious. The word has spread beyond academia in the last decade, helped by its lack of historical specificity. It can be seen everywhere on social media and in the mainstream press; it crops up in headlines in Forbes Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Its usefulness, however, is limited. Racialised exclusivity and national particularity (antiblackness nearly always pertains to African Americans) means relinquishing the possibility of forming alliances with other oppressed communities.

Academics in marginalised fields have made limited progress in establishing departments, programmes and centres for the study of ethnic, racialised and gendered histories. We have seen only modest increases in the number of Black, brown and gender non-conforming people among teaching staff. For the most part our intellectual existence remains siloed, with each field of knowledge having its own vocabulary and organised into a discrete ontological formation. In Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995), Michel-Rolph Trouillot insisted that history is the fruit of power but power itself is never so transparent that its analysis becomes superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots. University administrations boast of diversity, equity and inclusion, while behind the scenes they hold tightly to power, continuing to privilege the Eurocentric, settler colonial forms of knowledge that secure the marginalisation of certain areas of study. Our fields are kept in constant competition for resources; as we scramble for scraps of funding, we fail to engage with, let alone expose, the roots of power. This leads me to conclude that the disciplinary borders and exclusionary concepts of contemporary academia have not only created new forms of silencing but are a betrayal of the roots of these disciplines: insurgent social movements which did not want to be incorporated into the academy as it then existed, but sought its radical transformation.

Exterminate All the Brutes, Raoul Pecks four-part film, situates the emergence of the land that would become the United States within an account of the global ambitions of European imperialism, using its ideologies and praxis of domination to organise the narrative: civilisation, colonisation and extermination. Peck takes his bearings from three works: Trouillots Silencing the Past, Sven Lindqvists Exterminate All the Brutes (1996) and An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States (2014) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. The film has been described as essayistic, but it would be more precise to say that it enacts these authors historical analyses: their arguments are so deeply embedded in the film that it becomes an intellectual collaboration, an alternative to the intellectually segregated university departments that currently disseminate knowledge about race, ethnicities and indigeneity.

The film breaks with conventional documentary-making in its use of scripted fictional scenes and animation, drawing on a rich visual, musical, literary and scientific vocabulary taken from a vast number of sources everything from archival anthropological and scientific material to Hollywood films and Pecks own family archive. It bears witness to acts of brutality characteristic of Western European forms of conquest and Christian missionary zeal in Africa, the Americas and Europe, and traces the beliefs, dressed up as science, that produced and attempted to justify this brutality, right of conquest and dispossession. This means moving from the Crusades to the many genocidal wars against Indigenous peoples, from atrocities committed in the name of manifest destiny and the Monroe Doctrine to the rabidly anti-migrant movements of our own times. The film does not limit its examination to extremist movements or leaders, although it features Jair Bolsonaro, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. The idea that US supremacy is seen as being ordained by divine providence is underlined by an episode showing American presidents speaking the words So help me God when reciting the Oath of Office, immediately followed by an account of the entanglement of the US arms industry with the executive branch of government.

The longue dure of what Dunbar-Ortiz calls the inherently genocidal impulse of settler colonialism is difficult to watch. Exterminate makes its audience witness many forms of colonial brutality: from the intimacies of bodily dismemberment to the technologies that allow death and war to happen at a distance. Peck refuses to conform to narrative linearity, rejecting the idea that the current resurgence of white supremacist and state violence can be traced back to a single origin. Instead, we move across time and place, between Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. The film is as restless as the images of huge ocean waves that occasionally mark its transitions.

On 1 June 2020, a gathering of Black Lives Matter supporters in Lafayette Square, north of the White House, was attacked by heavily armed security forces from various federal agencies, including the US Park Police, the Bureau of Prisons Special Operations Response Teams and National Guardsmen. While dispersing the peaceful crowd to clear the way for a presidential photo opportunity, they committed human rights violations, including firing flash-bang shells, tear gas and rubber bullets. Seven months later, on 6 January 2021, TV stations and social media broadcast a very different police response. Rioters carrying stun guns, knives, chemical sprays, baseball bats and flagpoles easily overwhelmed a sparse contingent of Capitol police and stormed the building. The police had been told to hold back and not to use their most powerful methods of crowd control.

Amnesty International documented 125 separate incidents of state violence against peaceful protesters in forty states, plus the District of Columbia, between 26 May and 5 June 2020. These acts were committed by members of state and local police departments, as well as by National Guard troops and security personnel from several federal agencies. Among the abuses recorded are beatings, the misuse of tear gas and pepper spray and the inappropriate and, at times, indiscriminate firing of sponge rounds and rubber bullets. In November 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights called on the Justice Department to investigate the treatment by law enforcement agencies of peaceful protesters against the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation (Peck includes footage of this in Exterminate). They used armoured vehicles, automatic rifles, acoustic weapons, water cannon, concussion grenades, attack dogs, pepper spray and beanbag bullets.

Other rights are also being suppressed. In 2013, the US Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder removed two of the most powerful provisions in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which addressed entrenched racial discrimination in voting: Section 5 required certain states to obtain federal clearance before changing their voting rules, and Section 4b determined which states had to do this. The Supreme Court ruled that the government was using an outdated process to decide which states had to get their rules approved. Since the judgment there has been a wave of voting measures aimed at limiting the rights of minority voters. The Brennan Centre for Justice reported that in 2021 alone legislators in 49 states drafted more than 440 restrictive voting bills, while 19 states enacted 34 laws that made voting more difficult, for instance by introducing requirements for proof of citizenship or repealing the provision of postal votes. The Spirit Lake Nation (Mni Wakan Oyate) and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa recently filed a federal lawsuit challenging North Dakotas new legislative map, which, by means of redistricting, dilutes Native American voting power.

In addition to this suppression of the Black and Indigenous vote and of the right to protest is a national crusade to control historical knowledge. In state legislatures and on town school boards (consisting of locally elected officials) politicians and interest groups are advocating and legislating for the banning of books and of teaching that engages with racialised and gendered injustice. The advocacy group Truth in Education claims that children need to be protected from the discussion of sexual and gender identities and from critical race theory (CRT), a misnomer for any initiatives in state schools or state-run institutions that address past and present inequities or introduce anti-racist policies. Citizens for Renewing America offers an eight-page DIY guide to school board language which promises to help those who would sanction and potentially sack teachers for violating these rules. No Left Turn in Education provides sample letters and petitions. This is a campaign of fear, targeted at teachers and administrators in public institutions. One group in particular is being called to arms: white parents of school-age children.

Mary Beeman, the campaign manager for the Truth in Education school board candidates in my town (all of them Republicans), summarised the threat: Helping kids of colour to feel they belong has a negative effect on white, Christian or conservative kids. Our local branch of No Left Turn in Education warns parents about euphemisms for CRT that show their children are being indoctrinated. These include equity, social justice initiative, systemic racism, critical race pedagogy, diversity, anti-racist, culturally responsive teaching and whiteness. One of its goals is to expose CRT as an evil, divisive, Marxist, anti-American, ideology that calls for dismantling and replacing all of our cherished American institutions including our constitution, our government, our legal system, capitalism, the nuclear family, religion, education, law enforcement, private property and individualism. Heather MacDonald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a right-wing think tank, launched a particularly vehement attack on the Art Institute of Chicago, accusing it of abandoning its mission as a guardian of Western art and deriding its director for stating that the museums building is located on the traditional unceded homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Nations.

The criticism that might be made of statements like this, which have become common in parts of the academy, including my own university, is that they are rarely written in collaboration with the elders of Indigenous communities, and rarely make reference to the continued existence of these communities; instead, they relegate indigeneity to an eternal past while avoiding the pressing issue of Indigenous sovereignty in the present. They obscure, rather than promote, attempts to expand our intellectual, cultural and geographical horizons, and to challenge our allegiances to home, department, academic discipline and nation.

History is written by the victors, but diligent and continual silencing is required to maintain its claims on the present and future. It is a mistake to believe that white supremacy is something nurtured and reproduced by extremist organisations and bad apples in the armed forces and police. White supremacy is ubiquitous in the US. It operates in the most mundane aspects of daily life; in the economic order that decides who has what and how they get it; in the historical amnesia that makes some stories disappear; in the language we use to speak and name the past. Central here is the uncritical regurgitation of the mythologies of European settlement, the origin stories of the nation that are institutionalised at all levels of local, state and federal history and cultural memory.

In Exterminate All the Brutes, Peck discusses his own refusal to affect the pose of the restrained, moderate, balanced, judicious and neutral filmmaker. I too have broken with the conventions of intellectual neutrality in my work. His film prompted me to ask, not for the first time, how I, as a Black intellectual, could think about the terms civilisation, colonisation and extermination and use them to confront the many layers of silence in the place from which I write.

I live on the Northeastern coast of the US in an Anglophile shoreline town. It is an excellent place from which to consider the ways in which a settlement with colonialism can reproduce the injustice and violations of white supremacy. The atmosphere in the town is one of preserved time; too content and self-satisfied with its sense of liberality, it denies the history of New England while seeming to embrace it. It seeks to draw visitors into a cocoon of English colonial history, memorialising the arrival and settlement in 1639 of a band of Puritans under the leadership of the Reverend Henry Whitfield. State and local authorities have legislated for the preservation of numerous buildings, four districts and the town green: there are five museums in historic houses; an energetic preservation alliance; and societies and foundations run by generations of residents dedicated to the stewardship of a very particular vision of the past.

In June 2014, the town installed a 24-foot-long, 6-foot-wide, 14-inch-thick pink granite slab into which is carved a replica of the covenant signed by the 25 male settlers on the St John, which was carrying them to what they thought of as a new world. In stark contrast, a recent initiative by volunteers to memorialise what is known about the historical presence of enslaved people in the town has resulted in the installation of four-inch concrete cubes, each bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name given to an enslaved person by their owner or trader. The cubes are embedded in the sidewalks next to the few buildings where enslaved people are known to have lived and worked. Most people pass by without noticing these weathered, discoloured, dirt-encrusted and increasingly unreadable markers.

There is no town memorial to Indigenous peoples, no mention of the displaced Menunkatuck, Quinnipiac, Hammonasset, Niantic, Mohegan and Wangunk who lived in the town from the mid-18th century until at least the mid-19th. There is no reference to the many groups of Algonquian peoples who inhabited this part of the Atlantic coast and its interior for thousands of years before the European invasion and colonisation of the Kwinitekw river valley, or to their descendants who still live here. The only mark of Indigenous existence in the town is a plaque on a gravestone under which lie the remains of a young male with a spinal injury, age 30-34 years, who lived between five hundred and a thousand years ago. The partial skeleton was uncovered on a construction site but remained in private hands until it was surrendered to the town, examined by the state archaeologist and students at Southern Connecticut State University, and reinterred in a corner of the Alder Brook cemetery in 2009.

Visitors to the town, which describes itself as the highlight of Connecticut tourism, can create their own itinerary, delivered to their electronic devices as they browse the towns website. The promise that they will be charmed by a quaint New England village is, apparently, fulfilled. Charming and quaint are words I often overhear on the Town Green or in front of the historic houses or near the displays of colonial artefacts. The meagre paragraphs on Indigenous peoples on the website make it sound as if they were essentially wiped out by disease before the arrival of English settler colonists. Only a perfunctory reference is made to the Menunkatuck, the small group of the Quinnipiac peoples whose homeland this was, and its a reference that lends a patina of contractual legality to the English settlement: a deed, signed by Shaumpishuh, the Menunkatuck sachem, or leader, conveyed the use of the land to the towns founding fathers. The website does not include any reference to the Pequot, the most influential and powerful Indigenous community in the region until they were massacred by the English (a massacre so brutal that it must have influenced the decision of the Quinnipiac peoples to permit the use of their coastal territory).

The word quaint suggests a comforting and comfortable relation to the past; it keeps at bay any of the anxiety or misgivings that could that should arise from the history of this land. What is experienced by tourists and residents as historic is an assemblage of heritage for consumption, and what is meant by quaint is the reassuring knowledge that there will be no confrontation with the violence and brutality of European colonisation or its consequences for Indigenous peoples.

As Andrew Lipman writes in The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (2017), the duelling nations of foreigners did not settle [the Atlantic shore]: they unsettled it, transforming a thriving place into what Lipman calls a nightmarish landscape of death. In 1637, two forces of English soldiers, one led by Captain John Mason and drawn from settlements in what is now Connecticut, and the other from the Massachusetts Bay Colony under Captain John Underhill, surrounded and fired on a stockaded Pequot village on the Mystic River, while their Narragansett and Mohegan auxiliaries stood at a distance. Each force entered through one of the two gates in a palisado protecting many closely pitched homes. Mason later claimed that his original intent was to destroy by the Sword and save the Plunder soldiers depended financially on the spoils of war but, frustrated at meeting fierce resistance from Pequot warriors firing arrows through loopholes, decided that We should never kill them after that manner We must burn them. He took a log from the campfire and started to set the houses ablaze. His soldiers did the same, while Captain Underhill set a fire with a trail powder at the other end of the village. The two fires met and became a conflagration.

On 29 December 1890, three hundred Lakota people were massacred by the US army near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. There are photographs. At first light on 26 May 1637, around seven hundred Pequot were massacred by English troops; 150 of them were warriors sent by their sachem, Sassacus, from the village of Weinshauks, to intercept the English; most of the others were women and children. Hundreds were burned alive. English troops encircled the perimeter and shot or impaled anyone who ran from the flames. Seven Pequot escaped; seven were taken prisoner. Two Englishmen were killed and twenty wounded. Mason considered the incineration and butchering of the Pequot an act mandated by God. Underhill wrote that sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish. There are no photographs.

The massacre demoralised the Pequot, and sent a shock wave through all the Indigenous communities in the region. The Pequot War of 1636-38 saw the English engage in total war. Their actions went beyond the murder and imprisonment of Indigenous peoples to the destruction of the environment that sustained them: habitations, stores of food, fields of corn. Some of the sachems sought refuge for their people with other Indigenous communities. Weinshauks was abandoned. Sassacus led the villagers west along the Mishimayagat shoreline pathway towards Quinnipiac, hoping to regroup and take a stand against the English there. Reinforced by a contingent of 120 troops from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Connecticut force set off in pursuit. The walk I take each day follows the route of the Mishimayagat, although there are no visible signs of the complex network of pathways used by the Algonquian peoples for centuries, routes that contemporary roads retrace. Stragglers from the group travelling with Sassacus were captured and killed as they crossed the Kwinitekw, although two sachems were spared on condition that they help the English locate the remaining Pequot.

The name of the southernmost tip of my town, Sachems Head, should give one pause for thought. A promontory with beautiful coves and inlets jutting into Long Island Sound, it has become the exclusive preserve of wealthy families in large houses, governed by its own association and charter, with a members-only yacht club and stringent parking regulations that effectively deny public access to uninvited visitors. The associations website has nothing to say about a letter written by Captain Richard Davenport on 17 July 1637, describing his interrogation of Pequot prisoners whom we put to death that night and called the place Sacheme head. Instead, any historical curiosity about the name of the area is deflected by a photograph of a very different event, the performance at a local hotel in 1915 by Buffalo Bills Wild West Touring Company, shown smiling in full costume representing Indianness.

Black and Indigenous histories are closely entangled in this story. The English troops caught up with the Pequot at Sasqua, a swamp east of Quinnipiac, and surrounded them. Some escaped, but two hundred were taken prisoner. Fifty women and children were shipped to John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts, with a note from Stoughton, the militia captain, listing the female captives he and his men wanted to enslave in their households. Those who were not domestically enslaved, including children, were taken to the West Indies under Captain Peirce on the Salem ship Desire. The ship left from Providence Island on its return voyage on 26 February 1638, loaded with cotton and tobacco and negroes. In the Bahamas, the enslaved Pequots were fungible bodies exchanged for enslaved Africans, who were shipped to what has become known as New England.

The English declared the right to settle the land they called Connecticut by right of conquest. Their pursuit of the Pequots by water and along the Mishimayagat path led directly to the colonisation of Quinnipiac and the shoreline to the east. Theophilus Eaton, the Reverend John Davenport and five hundred English Puritans sailed from Boston with pigs, sheep, cattle, goats, horses and oxen, landing at Quinnipiac, later renamed New Haven, on 24 April 1638, determined to establish a settlement. Henry Whitfields band of settler-colonists arrived in Quinnipiac before exploring the coastline to its east. They declared their right to establish the Plantation of Menunkatuck in 1639, formally named Guilford in 1643. My town.

One Indigenous response to the unsettling of the saltwater frontier by English colonisers is recorded. The Narragansett sachem Miantonomo delivered a speech to the Montauks in 1642 arguing that

For so are we all Indians as the English are, and say brother to one another; so must we be one as they are, otherwise we shall all be gone shortly, for you know our fathers had plenty of deer and skins, our plains were full of deer, as also our woods, and of turkies, and our coves full of fish and fowl. But these English, having gotten our land, they with scythes cut down the grass, and with axes fell the trees; their cows and horses eat the grass, and their hogs spoil our clam banks, and we shall be all starved. Therefore it is best for you to do as we, for we are all the Sachems from east to west, both Moquakues and Mohauks joining with us, and we are all resolved to fall on them all, at one appointed day.

Miantonomo was captured by the Mohegan leader Uncas. The Colonial Court condemned him for attempting to forge alliances against the English and asked Uncas to kill him. The Treaty of Hartford, agreed by the English, the Mohegan and the Narragansett in 1638, had declared that the Pequots could no longer speak their language, live in their former territory or even call themselves Pequots. Despite this attempt at annihilation, some Pequots survived and fought to retain their land and autonomy. Black and Indigenous histories mixed together, as they did in other Southern New England tribes.

The Black Seminole populations of Florida and Oklahoma had a similarly mixed heritage. The Second Seminole War, conducted by the US government between 1835 and 1842 under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, attempted to return the Black Seminole to enslavement and to remove the Seminole Indians from their land. Exterminate All the Brutes begins with a re-enactment of one of the battles in this conflict. The camera zooms in slowly on a headshot of Osceola, a male warrior of the Seminole Nation, played in the film by a woman. We are told that her story reaches deep into the history of this continent. The portrait is intercut with two brief glimpses of the future, in which Osceola is shot and scalped while fighting alongside her Black allies. Osceolas face dissolves into that of Pecks mother, Gisle, as a young woman in Haiti, an intertwining of resemblance and difference that tells a global story of the greed and destruction of European imperialism and a particular story of Black and Indigenous solidarity.

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Hazel V. Carby We must burn them: Against the Origin Story LRB 26 May 2022 - London Review of Books

Worlds 1st Focused Ultrasound Cancer Immunotherapy Center LaunchedUVA Health and the Charlottesville-based Focused Ultrasound Center today announced the launch of theFocused Ultrasound Cancer Immunotherapy Center, the worlds first center dedicated specifically to advancing a focused ultrasound and cancer immunotherapy treatment approach that could revolutionize 21st-century cancer care.

A Study by the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology Investigates Mercury Contamination in Freshwater Lakes in KoreaDuring the 1950s and 1960s, Minamata Bay in Japan was the site of widespread mercury poisoning caused by the consumption of fish containing methylmercurya toxic form of mercury that is synthesized when bacteria react with mercury released in water.

Researchers identify possible new target to treat newborns suffering from lack of oxygen or blood flow in the brainThe condition, known as hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), can result in severe brain damage, which is why researchers at theCase Western Reserve University School of Medicineand UH Rainbow Babies & Childrens Hospital (UH Rainbow) are studying the condition to evaluate how HIE is treated and develop new, more effective options.

Should You Give Your Child Opioids for Post-Operative Pain Management?Routine head and neck procedures, such as removal of tonsils and adenoids and the placement of ear tubes, may cause moderate to severe pain in pediatric patients.

Two birds with one stone: a refined bioinformatic analysis can estimate gene copy-number variations from epigenetic dataA team led by Dr. Manel Esteller, Director of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, has improved the computational identification of potentially druggable gene amplifications in tumors, from epigenetic data.

Some Shunts Used After Epilepsy Surgery May Risk Chronic HeadachesSurgeons who observe persistent fluid buildup after disconnecting epileptic and healthy brain areas should think twice before installing low-pressure nonprogrammable drainage shunts, according to a study coauthored by Rutgers pediatric and epilepsy neurosurgeonYasunori Nagahamathat found chronic headaches could result from these procedures.

Re-defining the selection of surgical procedure in sufferers with tuberous sclerosis complicatedBy illustrating a number of instances of tuberous sclerosis in sufferers whove undergone surgical resection with seizure-free outcomes, researchers have recognized components that decide choice of sufferers for profitable surgical procedure.

Scientists study links between obesity, age and body chemistryA team of Clemson University scientists is making inroads in understanding the relationship between certain enzymes that are normally produced in the body and their role in regulating obesity and controlling liver diseases.

Clemson scientists discover new tools to fight potentially deadly protozoa that has pregnant women avoiding cat litter boxesNow, a group of researchers from Clemson University have discovered a promising therapy for those who suffer from toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by the microscopic protozoa Toxoplasma gondii.

Rising income inequality linked to Americans declining healthRising levels of income inequality in the United States may be one reason that the health of Americans has been declining in recent decades, new research suggests.

New research to understand how the brain handles optical illusions and makes predictionsNew research projects are underway at the Allen Institute to address these questions through OpenScope, the shared neuroscience observatory that allows scientists around the world to propose and direct experiments conducted on one of the Institutes high-throughput experimental platforms.

Robotic therapy: A new effective treatment for chronic stroke rehabilitationA study led by Dr. Takashi Takebayashi and published in the journal Stroke suggests continuing therapy for chronic stroke patients is still beneficial while suggesting a radical alternative.

Children with history of maltreatment could undergo an early maturation of the immune systemThe acute psychosocial stress states stimulate the secretion of an antibody type protein which is decisive in the first immune defence against infection, but only after puberty.

Toxoplasmosis: propagation of parasite in host cell stoppedA new method blocks the protein regulation of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii and causes it to die off inside the host cell.

Research shows the role empathy may play in musicCan people who understand the emotions of others better interpret emotions conveyed through music? A new study by an international team of researchers suggests the abilities are linked.

Effects of stress on adolescent brains triple networkA new studyinBiological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier, has used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the effects of acute stress and polyvicitimization, or repeated traumas, on three brain networks in adolescents.

Reform to Mental Health Act must prompt change in support for familiesFamily members of people with severe mental health challenges need greater support to navigate the UKs care system following changes announced in yesterdays Queens Speech, say the authors of a new study published in theBritish Journal of Social Work.

New knowledge about airborne virus particles could help hospitalsMeasurements taken by researchers at Lund University in Sweden of airborne virus in hospitals provide new knowledge about how best to adapt healthcare to reduce the risk of spread of infection.

Guidance developed for rare dancing eyes syndromeExperts from Evelina London Childrens Hospital developed the guidance in collaboration with a worldwide panel of experts and families of children with the condition.

Genetic study identifies migraine causes and promising therapeutic targetsQUT genetic researchers have found blood proteins that cause migraine and have a shared link with Alzheimers disease that could potentially be prevented by repurposing existing therapeutics.

How do genomes evolve between species? The key role of 3D structure in male germ cellsA study led by scientists at the UAB and University of Kent uncovers how the genome three-dimensional structure of male germ cells determines how genomes evolve over time.

Novel Supramolecular CRISPRCas9 Carrier Enables More Efficient Genome EditingRecently, a research team from Kumamoto University, Japan, have constructed a highly flexible CRISPR-Cas9 carrier using aminated polyrotaxane (PRX) that can not only bind with the unusual structure of Cas9 and carry it into cells, but can also protect it from intracellular degradation by endosomes.

Obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure increase mortality from COVID-19 especially among young and middle-aged peopleObesity, impaired blood glucose metabolism, and high blood pressure increase the risk of dying from COVID-19 in young and middle-aged people to a level mostly observed in people of advanced age.

Are most ORR electrocatalysts promising nanocatalytic medicines for tumor therapy?The current searches for medical catalysts mainly rely on trial-and-error protocols, due to the lack of theoretical guidance.

The combination makes the difference: New therapeutic approach against breast cancerResearchers at the University of Basel have now discovered an approach that involves a toxic combination with a second target gene in order to kill the abnormal cells.

Glatiramer acetate compatible with breastfeedingA study conducted by the neurology department of Ruhr-Universitt Bochum (RUB) at St. Josef Hospital on the drug glatiramer acetate can relieve mothers of this concern during the breastfeeding period.

A*STAR, NHCS, NUS And Novo Nordisk To Collaborate On Cardiovascular Disease ResearchThe Agency for Science, Technology and Researchs (A*STAR) Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) and Bioinformatics Institute (BII), as well as the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), National University of Singapore (NUS), and pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk have signed an agreement to study the mechanisms underlying cardiovascular disease progressionespecially the condition called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).

Taking ownership of your healthA study published this month inAge and Ageing by The Japan Collaborate Cohort (JACC) Study group at Osaka University assessed the impact of modifying lifestyle behaviors on life expectancy from middle age onwards.

Experimental evolution illustrates gene bypass process for mitosisResearchers from Nagoya University demonstrated gene bypass events for mitosis using evolutionary repair experiments.

Temporomandibular Disorder-Induced Pain Likely to Worsen in Late Menopause TransitionNew study evaluates the influence of menopause symptoms on the intensity of temporomandibular disorder-induced pain throughout the full menopause transition.

Breathtaking solution for a breathless problemA drop in oxygen levels, even when temporary, can be critical to brain cells. This explains why the brain is equipped with oxygen sensors. Researchers from Japan and the United States report finding a new oxygen sensor in the mouse brain.

How calming our spinal cords could provide relief from muscle spasmsAn Edith Cowan University (ECU) studyinvestigating motoneurons in the spine has revealed two methods can make our spinal cords less excitable and could potentially be usedto treat muscle spasms.

Analysis Finds Government Websites Downplay PFAS Health RisksState and federal public health agencies often understate the scientific evidence surrounding the toxicity of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in their public communications, according toan analysispublished today in the journalEnvironmental Health.

Multiple diagnoses are the norm with mental illness; new genetic study explains whyThe study, published this weekin the journalNature Genetics, found that while there is no gene or set of genes underlying risk for all of them, subsets of disordersincluding bipolar disorder and schizophrenia; anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder; and major depression and anxietydo share a common genetic architecture.

Drinkers sex plus brewing method may be key to coffees link to raised cholesterolThe sex of the drinker as well as the brewing method may be key to coffees link with raised cholesterol, a known risk factor for heart disease, suggests research published in the open access journalOpen Heart.

Artificial cell membrane channels composed of DNA can be opened and locked with a keyIn new research, Arizona State University professorHao Yan, along with ASU colleagues and international collaborators from University College London describe the design and construction of artificial membrane channels, engineered using short segments of DNA.

Single cell RNA sequencing uncovers new mechanisms of heart diseaseResearchers at the Hubrecht Institute have now successfully applied a new revolutionary technology (scRNA-seq) to uncover underlying disease mechanisms, including specifically those causing the swelling.

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Other Notable Health Studies & Research From May 11, 2022 - Study Finds

The Stanford team infused fluid from 10-week-old mice into the brains of 18-month-old mice over seven days, and found that older mice were better at remembering to associate a small electric shock with a noise and flashing light.

Closer examination showed the fluid had woken up processes which regenerate neurons and myelin the fatty material that protects nerve cells within the hippocampus, the memory centre of the brain.

Crucially, scientists think they know which part of the fluid is primarily driving the effect: a protein called serum response factor (SRF) which decreases in older mice.

When they used a growth factor called Fgf17 to boost levels of SRF, the older mice showed the same improvements seen with the youthful infusions, suggesting that Fgf17 could be used as a treatment to rejuvenate ageing brains.

Dr Tony Wyss-Coray, of Stanfords School of Medicine in California, said the research showed that the ageing process is malleable and that improving the environment in which neurons live may be a better approach than targeting the cells themselves.

And its not just in the brain where the regenerating properties of youth are showing promise. The effect appears to work from head to tail.

Earlier this month, The Quadram Institute in Norwich showed that transplanting faecal microbes from young mice into old mice reversed hallmarks of ageing in the gut, eyes and brain.

In contrast, when microbes from aged mice were transplanted into young mice, it induced inflammation in the brain, depleting a key protein required for normal eyesight.

The team is now working to understand how long these positive effects last and how they are able to impact organs far away from the gut.

Dr Aimee Parker, The Quadram Institutes lead author of the study, said: We were excited to find that by changing the gut microbiota of elderly individuals, we could rescue indicators of age-associated decline commonly seen in degenerative conditions of the eye and brain.

Although the latest studies have been done on mice, the breakthroughs signal an important shift in the field of ageing, which could soon revolutionise therapies.

Experiments are even showing that young blood itself can reverse the ageing process, perhaps even curing Alzheimers disease.

Historically, cultures have revered the blood of the young. It was even rumoured that Kim Jong-il, the former North Korean dictator, injected himself with blood from healthy young virgins to slow the ageing process.

The first hint that young blood may be rejuvenating came in 2005 when Stanford carried out a grisly experiment stitching old and young mice together so that they shared a circulatory system.

After a month, the scientists discovered that the liver and muscles of the older mouse had begun to regenerate.

In 2014, Harvard University discovered that young blood also recharges the brain, triggering the formation of new blood vessels and improving memory and learning in mice.

The team even identified a youth protein which is responsible for keeping the brain and muscles young and strong.

The protein, known as GDF11, is present in the bloodstream in large quantities when we are young but peters out as we age.

Raising levels of the GDF11 protein in mice has been shown to improve the function of every organ in the body, including the heart.

However, the field is not without controversy. In 2019, a US start-up called Ambrosia that was offering teenage blood plasma to Silicon Valley billionaires for $8,000 a litre was forced to shut down after the FDA warned against the procedure.

In 2017, Ambrosia began a clinical trial designed to find out what happens when the veins of adults are filled with blood from younger people, but never published the results.

There are still hopes that one day such procedures will be used in humans.

In 2019, Wyss-Corays biotech company Alkahest reported the results from a small six-month trial that saw 40 patients with Alzheimers disease infused with a special human plasma blend, containing more of the proteins which vanish with age.

It appeared to halt their expected mental decline. The company also has similar trials under way for Parkinsons disease, age-related macular degeneration, inflammatory disease and end-stage renal disease.

The Harvard spin-off company Elevian is also working on producing enough GDF11 to begin human trials that explore whether it can help people recover after strokes.

Our research suggests that by targeting fundamental and common underlying mechanisms of ageing as opposed to a specific disease, it may be possible to treat and prevent multiple age-related diseases, said Dr Mark Allen, Elevian CEO and co-founder.

It may only be a few years before youth transplants finally move from the pages of gothic horror novels into the clinic. Whether patients will feel squeamish about such vampire procedures remains to be seen.

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'Youth transplants' really can slow the ageing process - The Telegraph

The Singularitys theoretical merge of man and machine is opening new doors of science and technology.

Robot and SoulShutterstock

This article is based on technology and science postings, and related media reports. All linked information within this article is fully-attributed to the following outlets: LiveScience.com, Metro.Co.uk, Dr. Ian Pearson, Futurism.com, Stanford Computer Science, Villanova University, and NPR.org.

In his September, 2021 article for LiveScience.com, entitled Will Humans Ever Be Immortal? writer Patrick Pester states: To live indefinitely, we would need to stop the body from aging. A group of animals may have already solved this problem, so it isn't as far-fetched as it sounds.Hydra are small, jellyfish-like invertebrates with a remarkable approach to aging. They are largely made up of stem cells that constantly divide to make new cells, as their older cells are discarded. The constant influx of new cells allows hydra to rejuvenate themselves and stay forever young,

Scientists have been studying the hydra with increasing fervor of late, which subsequently has rejuvenated legitimate studies of the concept of immortality.

Further, as with science-based biological studies on the matter, technologists have reverted to the Singularity to explain the potential of consciousness surviving the death experience.

From Metro.Co.uk, in a March, 2020 piece by Jeff Parsons titled Futurologist Claims Super Rich Will Live Forever by Implanting Brains Into Robots, the writer elaborates on potentially the next sci-tech frontier for our countrys billionaires: In the future, ultra rich individuals will be able to transplant their brains into lifelike robots and achieve a level of immortality. Thats according to noted futurist Dr. Ian Pearson who explained that these billionaires will be able to fund special silicone-based robots with special abilities straight out of what we consider science fiction.

Pearson credits the speed of modern technology for his estimate of 2060 as being the year consciousness transfer becomes mainstream.

Regarding the Singularity concept proper, Futurism.com published Singularity: Explain it to Me Like Im 5-Years-Old, by Roey Tzezana. The article discusses the two pioneers of the theory: scientist and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, and inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near.

As excerpted from the article: In his book The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil basically agrees with Vinge but believes the latter has been too optimistic in his view of technological progress. Kurzweil believes that by the year 2045 we will experience the greatest technological singularity in the history of mankind: the kind that could, in just a few years, overturn the institutes and pillars of society and completely change the way we view ourselves as human beings. Just like Vinge, Kurzweil believes that well get to the Singularity by creating a super-human artificial intelligence (AI).

In todays science and technology communities, the combination of the biological hydras figurative immortality and the Singularitys theoretical merge of man and machine have brought forth the idea that we may well have the tools to continue a form of life after death.

Let us explore further.

In Downloading Consciousness, contributing staff of Stanford Computer Science explain why they believe the technology for this purpose remains far in the future: Current research in the field approaches downloading consciousness through several avenues. Projects such as IBM's Blue Brain attempt to model the brain using artificial neural networks. Another avenue is that of brain imaging. Current brain imaging uses scanning technologies to create detailed maps of the brain. Achieving downloaded consciousness will require a much greater level of detail than that provided by today's brain-mapping technology.

Moral and religious issues regarding experimentation in this regard are omnipresent. Such issues have been ongoing for decades, well prior to our current technology. See here for an archived 1968 paper from Villanova University, Between Life and Death: Ethical and Moral Issues Involved in Recent Medical Advances.

From the paper, which offers a historical perspective on the power of the medical community: As a beginning we might say that good medicine regards the patient always as a person and not as a mere object of experimentation. It respects the person's attitudes toward life and death; it is interested in the quality of life and not only in absolutizing mere vegetative survival. It considers the patient as a person whose life has philosophical and theological implications that cannot be ignored by the medical profession.

Finally, NPR.org, in their interview piece entitled The Reluctant Immortalist, touches on the ethical conflicts inherent in the meeting of science and technology while offering a mythic perspective of the hydra: A new animal that eventually got the name hydra after the monster of Greek mythology, a serpent with regenerating heads that was so hard to kill, Hercules himself could not slay it alone. And as more and more scientists observed this thing, the rumors began to build that the real animal was so good at regenerating, its cells so freakishly good at repairing, that it really might be immortal.

The NPR piece consists of a dialog between scientists and zoologists.

The takeaway for modern-day science is that between studying the biology of the hydra, and our increasing technological capabilities that may one day allow for a transfer of consciousness, mankind may be on the verge of superseding the loss of the human body.

For now, this is still the stuff of science fiction, but science fiction historically has had a tendency to become science fact, which is representative of both the fear and promise of man-made life continuation.

Though the concept of surviving consciousness remains an ideal for some in the science and tech worlds, and a religious-based fear for some in the public who believe man should not encroach on the role of a deity, nonetheless the field is receiving increasing attention.

Time will prove if Kurzweil and others who share the belief and concerns of continuing a form of life are correct in their assessment, or mere fantasists.

Thank you for reading.

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Scientists Believe Death May Be Reversible Through Computers and Robots | Joel Eisenberg - NewsBreak Original

What if there was a simple way to live longer a treatment to make your bodys cells young again, a modern, better researched version of the mythical elixir of life?

It sounds like science fiction but, after recent breakthroughs in which the bodies of mice have been rejuvenated without any apparent ill-effects, the worlds richest people are throwing millions, even billions, at start-ups aiming to reverse the process of ageing.

The latest laboratory devoted to defying (or least delaying) death is due to open in Cambridge soon. Its the UK arm of Altos Labs in California, now the biggest biotech company launch of all time backed by $3 billion in investment, including from Amazons Jeff Bezos. It recently poached Hal Barron, chief scientific officer of British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, to be CEO.

Bezos is not the only tech entrepreneur with an eye on immortality: PayPal founder Peter Thiel has put money into the Methuselah Foundation, which has the goal of making 90 the new 50. And Googles founders have been at it for years with their Calico start-up.

Its tempting to dismiss this as the ultimate billionaires vanity exercise and its telling that despite being in operation since 2013, Calico has yet to come up with anything approaching the elixir of life.

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But experts are genuinely excited by the potential this time. The current gold rush is driven by a new understanding of the biology of ageing, according to Dr Andrew Steele, author of Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old: Suddenly there is this consensus about what it is that causes the underlying ageing process, and were at a point where we understand enough about the process that we can start to try to intervene. He believes longevity drugs may even be available within a decade.Among the most promising leads so far are drugs called senolytics that kill senescent cells. These are damaged zombie cells that stop dividing and dont die off as they should, and a build-up of these cells is thought to make us increasingly frail as we age.

These drugs show huge, huge promise in mouse experiments: we can basically make mice biologically younger by many, many measures, explains Dr Steele. Some are already in human trials. He says there are currently more than two dozen companies trying to turn these from an idea in the lab into something that you and I may one day take with our morning cup of tea.

Whether we actually want to live an extra 50 years as one of the scientists at Altos Labs has claimed is eminently possible is quite another matter. Some proponents have even claimed that the first person to live to 1,000 may already have been born. However, more realistic voices suggest that the real benefit of this push for longer life lies in increasing our healthspan the number of years we are healthy by preventing diseases associated with ageing, such as dementia and Type 2 diabetes.

But how? The science is fiendishly complicated, and there are several strands of promising research. One is rejuvenating the immune system. Several start-ups are investigating drugs targeting the thymus gland, a key part of the immune system that shrinks with age.

Another potentially exciting treatment is based on a chemical discovered 50 years ago on Easter Island. Rapamycin, which is produced by soil bacteria, has already been shown to inhibit the aged zombie cells in small animals and is currently being tested in dogs. Scientists hope that it could extend the dogs lifespan by up to a third and if the experiment succeeds, they hope to test it in humans.

Back at Altos Labs, theyre focusing on reprogramming older cells back to their embryonic stem cell state. To use an analogy readily understood by the tech billionaires funding the research, its a bit like restoring factory settings on your computer.

Among the scientists working there is Juan Carlos Izpisa Belmonte, a Spanish biochemist who managed to extend the lifespan of mice by an astonishing 30% in a recent experiment. He did it by adding gene-regulating proteins called Yamanaka factors to cells in order to turn them back to stem cells, the bodys raw material from which all our specialist cells from skin to liver to brain are developed. The process is named after Altos board member Shinya Yamanaka, who won a Nobel prize in 2012 for his discovery.

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Belmonte believes human lifespans could be increased by half a century this way, and has even claimed the Yamanaka process amounts to the real deal a genuine elixir of life.

The path to immortality seems far from smooth, however. There have been some big failures from longevity companies such as an anti-arthritis treatment from Unity Biotechnology, which aimed to destroy the senescent cells found in older tissues and which failed in a human trial. Other start-ups have published little in the way of concrete results, despite vast budgets such as Googles Calico, for example.

In biotechnology, in general, were talking about 60% or 80% failure rates, depending on the therapeutic area, says Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, the chief science officer of the UK-based Biogerontology Research Foundation and founder of biotechnology company Insilico Medicine.Ageing is the most complex therapeutic area we should expect failures, and we should expect major advances, but we shouldnt expect miracles.

He believes that drugs already approved for treating chronic diseases could have a dual use in extending lifespan. For example, Metformin, an inexpensive, widely used diabetes drug has been tested in America for anti-ageing qualities.

British anti-ageing pioneer Dr Nichola Conlon, a molecular biologist, says she does not believe that there will be one magic bullet to combat ageing, but rather incremental breakthroughs over time. She believes the world will gradually shift towards thinking that ageing is a treatable disease.

The ageing field at the moment is like where we were with cancer 50 years ago when it was, Oh, well, you know, bad luck, its a natural thing. Theres nothing you can do. Now its an absolute given that there are ways you can treat it. I think in the future, this is what ageing is going to be like.

As we develop the science it would almost be immoral to let somebody suffer from age-related ailments.

Many worry about the ethics of living longer on a planet thats already crowded, and with limited resources.

Dr Steele, for one, doesnt buy into this argument. This is going to be a revolution on a par with the discovery of antibiotics, but its going to be a revolution that is very slow motion.

Say youre worried about the economic consequences of 200-year-olds were not going to have any of those for at least 100 years, even if I snapped my fingers and cured ageing today. So this is something that were going to have plenty of time to get used to and adapt to. Ageing is probably the worlds biggest cause of suffering. Anything we can do to ameliorate that is a huge humanitarian benefit.

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Who wants to live forever? The rise of anti-ageing technology - Saga Magazine News

Pearl Jam paid tribute to late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins last night (May 7) in Los Angeles, performing the Hawkins-sung Foos song Cold Day in the Sun during their second of two shows at the Kia Forum. Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron, Hawkins friend and collaborator in Nighttime Boogie Association, took the mic and also played guitar during the performance. Cameron collaborator Mark Guiliana played drums and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith chipped in on tambourine.

Cold Day in the Sun was Hawkins most well-known lead vocal with the Foos and a staple of the bands live shows. The musician died suddenly on March 25 in Bogota while on tour with the band in support of its Grammy-winning album Medicine at Midnight.

Its never easy when you lose someone, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder told the audience of Hawkins, who died suddenly on March 25 in Bogota. As you get older, youll notice it starts happening more and more. Its just where you are on the timeline and where your friends are on the timeline. But sometimes like this, its so unexpected, but also, it makes it harder because he was someone who truly, truly loved living life on this planet. I guess the one thing we can be consoled by is the fact that he never wasted a moment, and he did live his life to the fullest. We just want more of it.

Hawkins was already honored last weekend by his friends in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who filled in for the Foos originally scheduled headlining performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

As for Pearl Jam, the group offered numerous other surprises during Saturdays show, including lesser-played tracks such as Leash, Immortality, Glorified G and the closing Indifference, which was played as a finale for the first time in nearly four years. The bands May West Coast tour in support of its 2020 album Gigaton continues Monday in Arizona.

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Pearl Jam Honor Taylor Hawkins With Foo Fighters Cover - Spin