Category Archives: Transhuman News

Human Longevity is a San Diego-based venture launched by Craig Venter and Peter Diamandis in 2013. Its goal is to build the world's most comprehensive database on human genotypes and phenotypes, and then subject it to machine learning so that it can help develop new ways to fight diseases associated with aging.[1] The company received US$80 million in investments in its Series A offering in summer 2014 and announced a further $220 million Series B investment offering in April 2016.[2] It has made deals with drug companies Celgene and AstraZeneca to collaborate in its research.

While it is conducting research, the company is offering a wellness service known as "Health Nucleus," which offers customers a range of medical tests such as a full genome sequencing and tests for early indications of cancers, Alzheimer's and heart disease.[3] This testing is meant to help people catch diseases earlier than otherwise possible and to identify risk factors for diseases later in life.[4]

At the start of 2017, the company hired Cynthia Collins from GE Healthcare, and Venter became Executive Chair. The company's chief operating officer, Mark Winham, left the company in mid-2017, and Collins and the company's chief medical officer, Brad Perkins, left in December. Venter stepped back into the CEO role, but announced in May 2018 that he was leaving the company to return to the J. Craig Venter Institute.[5] Venter was sued for allegedly 'stealing trade secrets' at Human Longevity.[6] The case has been dismissed.[7]

In 2018, according to The Wall Street Journal, "the company's valuation has declined 80 percent, from a $1.6 billion peak to $310 million" and "the companys employee count has dropped from 300 workers in 2016 to 150" in 2018.[8]

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Human Longevity - Wikipedia

Where social media was once the space for artists to expose their talents and for political acts to be exposed, today it has become a minefield of wokerati. In the run-up to a global pandemic, we witnessed how social media has pushed for authoritarianism in demanding curbs to freedom of dissent concerning matters of science where gender identity has been medicalized. Then during the pandemic, we saw this same left suddenly shift only to insist that medical science, even in its early days researching COVID-19, be hailed and rigidly supported.

Raise your hand if you got whiplash watching this bait and switch.

Despite the fact that the science on this coronavirus is far from complete, there are certain scientific facts that have informed public policy, much of it based on the successes of social distancing from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic: namely social distancing. A cursory glance at how Philadelphia and St. Louis approached the Spanish flu demonstrates a vastly different mortality rates between both cities because of how St. Louis employed social distancing measures within two days of its first case. Conversely, Philadelphia took 16 days to implement social distancing measures which had tragic results: Philadelphias mortality rate was more than double that of St. Louis. Lessons were learned a century ago that seem to not have trickled down through the generations.

Still, science has formed a large part of the social and political discourses throughout the twentieth century to the present and science has improved human longevity over the past 100 years with remarkable success. If it wasnt the dangers of nuclear fission, science was debating the pros and cons of protease inhibitors in the followup care to HIV+ patients. Still as Ebola and SARS, far away from the reality of most of our lives struck thousands, anti-science views came into preponderance in western, mostly anglophone countries since the turn of this century as identity politics sought to usurp scientific discourse and empirical evidence with feelings.

So, the one thing that changed in the initial weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic was an absolute silence in mainstream media, a virtual island retreat vacation from the hokum of identity politics that had been covered in hyperbolic numbers by the mainstream media for the past decade. Its almost as if for a brief moment in time earlier this year that most media understood, finally, the difference between pandering to upper-middle class readers with penchants for reading Pink News while trolling those they dislike on Twitter and those individuals who urgently needed healthcare information while caring for their loved ones.

That vacation, Im afraid to break it to you, dear reader, is now over.

As evidenced by hundreds of death threats and other rather rapey harassment sent to JK Rowling the anti-science mob is back.

Ta-dah! Alas the rampant misogyny from the lips of alleged peace-loving leftists.

All this because of Rowlings response to an earlier bout of harassment for her support of womens rights wherein she quite eloquently exposes her reasons for supporting womens rights.

Aside from this we are facing squarely the after party of where a global pandemic meets fairy dust. Heres the spoiler: it doesnt end well.

Daniel Radcliffe quickly spoke out in disagreement with Rowling stating, Transgender women are women, adding Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo (Rowling) or I.

This is a completely anti-science statement for Radcliffe to make given that neither healthcare associations nor doctors make the claim that changing ones sex is possible. Yet, Radcliffe self-isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic and read parts of JK Rowlings Harry Potter to fans across the globe. So what is it? Is a global pandemic a feeling or a reality, or was Radcliffe performing lockdown as part of the larger 5G conspiracy that has been floating about the netherworld in recent months? Radcliffe even apologizes for Rowling in one media report. Welcome to the 19th century where women are spoken for!

Other stars jumped in the mobbing such as Eddie Redmayne who wrote, I disagree with Jo's comments. Trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are valid. Perhaps Mr. Redmayne ought to consider, therefore, the ire set upon him by trans activists when he took the role of a transgender-identified male, Lili Elbe, in The Danish Girl (2016) disappointing another host of fans who believe that to have the role you must be the person (apparently) in real life.

But wait, what is this you say? Eddie Redmayne has been raising money for Partners In Health (PIH), a nonprofit organization fighting COVID-19 in some of the most vulnerable countries around the world. Its quite odd that when it comes to highlighting their own virtues these actors knows quite well where to put their money, and when it comes to trashing a writer who not coincidentally happens to be female, they know precisely how to cash in on the mobbing.

Heres Ruppert Grint stating more anti-science nonsense, the Ave Maria of gender ideology, Trans women are women, and here he is with a face mask. Me thinks that Grint knows his science when it suits his best interests. And here is Emma Watson decrying Rowlings transphobia. Oh but wait, here she is again virtue signalling for the #IStayHomeFor them campaign. Either Grint or Watson are feigning scientific knowledge about COVID-19 or they are feigning that sex can be changed. It really is that simple.

As one commenter wrote beneath Andrew Doyles discussion with Douglas Murray on woke culture, When victim hood is considered currency there's bound to be counterfeits. There is no more perfect example of the counterfeit culture of wokerati science when in the same sentence you can expound upon the magical, almost Hogwarts-worthy fiction of men becoming women while you wear a face mask telling your fans to stay home. Its time we hold up the counterfeits to the light and move forward with discussing in a civil manner the facts that separate science from fiction.

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The left only loves science when it suits their cause - The Post Millennial

This story appeared in the July/August 2020 issue as "A Dog's Life."Subscribe to Discovermagazine for more stories like this.

Matt Kaeberleins search for the secret to a long life began, in part, with 560 unique strains of bakers yeast.

He noticed that some of the strains with the greatest longevity tended to divide in slow motion. And he found that this slowdown, which takes place in the molecular mechanisms controlling cell division, could be tinkered with artificially by feeding the yeast a drug called rapamycin.

As he began publishing his results in 2006, other researchers were finding that the drug most commonly used to prevent rejection of organ transplants in humans had a similar anti-aging effect in worms and flies. Several years later, a landmark paper in Nature showed that rapamycin could increase the lifespan of middle-aged mice by 9 to 14 percent.

Veterinarian Kate Creevy (with Poet and Bandana) is one of the co-leaders of the Dog Aging Project. To participate, dogs visit the clinic regularly for checkups. (Credit: Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences)

By then a professor of pathology at the University of Washington medical school,Kaeberlein found these results both tantalizing and frustrating. There would appear to be molecular processes that are shared in the aging process cross lots of different organisms, he says. That means, in theory, a chemical like rapamycin should therefore also prolong the lives of people. But itd be hard to confirm: Humans live such a long time that it would take at least a generation to find out. What he required was a test subject that approximated humans biologically, but with a much shorter lifespan.

An intriguing solution came up in 2011 in a conversation with biologist Daniel Promislow, who would soon become a new colleague and, like Kaeberlein, was a dog owner. Considering that canines have an average life expectancy of about a decade, everyday exposure to a human living environment and natural susceptibility to many of the same frailties as humans from heart disease to cancer Promislow, who was already working toward starting aging studies in dogs, commented that pooches might just be a pathologists best friend. And pathologists could return the favor by helping to extend pets lifespans, a treat for anyonewho has a dog.

Veterinarian Kate Creevy and Rudy during a regular checkup. (Credit: Amber J. Keyser)

Kaeberlein decided to join in. Launching the Dog Aging Project late last year, with $23 million in funding from the National Institute on Aging, he, Promislow and their colleagues got 80,000 responses to their call for canine volunteers.

By then, their ambitions had expanded considerably. For most of his career, Promislow had wondered why larger dogs live shorter lives. It got me interested in thinking about dogs as a model for aging, he says. Looking at the relationship between dog size and lifespan might be a way to find genes associated with diseases of aging and longevity.

To address this question, Promislow plans to observe dogs over their lifetimes. For the next decade, hell collect genetic profiles, owner surveys and data from veterinary checkups.

According to Kate Creevy, a Texas A&M University veterinarian who co-leads the Dog Aging Project with Promislow and Kaeberlein, one of the biggest challenges will be to establish criteria to measure canine aging objectively, because nobody until now has set out to practice canine gerontology. We need something more specific than for me to walk into an exam room and say, Gosh, your dog looks really good, says Creevy.

Creevy and her colleagues are developing metrics that will encompass both physical and mental health, positioning them to investigate the genetics and environments of fast and slow agers, and to see whether similar systemic breakdowns make different breeds of dog susceptible to different diseases.

Daniel Promislow with Frisbee. (Credit: Tammi Kaeberlein)

Kaeberleins contribution to the Dog Aging Project directly complements the longitudinal study headed by Promislow and Creevy. His working hypothesis is that rapamycin targets pathways that contribute to a variety of aging-related diseases, he explains. If rapamycin delays the onset of cancer in golden retrievers and heart disease in Doberman pinschers, he says hell have evidence that there is a molecular biology of aging common to all canines and possibly other mammals.

He has reason to be optimistic. He recently conducted a 10-week study on a couple of dozen middle-aged dogs, testing for side effects of rapamycin. In that brief period, he saw evidence of more youthful heart activity and more affectionate behavior, which might be interpretable as improved cognition.

In an upcoming study, Kaeberlein will give rapamycin or a placebo to 500 middle-aged dogs for three years. Given their maturity, a couple of hundred will probably die in that period. By comparing the lifespan of dogs on the drug with those chowing on placebos, Kaeberlein will be able to determine whether his treatment really works.

He acknowledges the personal disappointments ahead for some participants, but believes the distress will be outweighed by the potential of prolonged life for dogs and humans alike. To a dog person like Kaeberlein, these extra years are a lot more enticing than spending some additional quality time with some long-lived bakers yeast.

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The Drug That Could One Day Help People and Dogs Live Longer - Discover Magazine

Kathleen McQuillan

Kathleen McQuillan

In 1995, I received a copy of a book entitled When Beaver Was Very Great: Stories to Live By, a compendium of tales from Anishinaabeg storyteller Anne M. Dunn. As I prepared to write about my world surrounded by beaver, Dunns title story popped into my mind. She writes of an unspecified bygone age when beaver grew very large. Prehistoric skeletal fragments from the Ice Age indicate Castoroides grew to be eight feet tall and weigh three hundred pounds. Her story is about the competition between Beaver and Human over who would prevail as the worlds greatest landscape architects. Im not convinced that this contest has ever ended!Thanks to beaver, I am an island dweller. They are my neighbors, friends, formidable opponents, and at times, my nemesis. They live in three creeks that surround my little island of high ground, the creeks that drain miles of untouched spruce and tamarack swamp. The ones where my young sons spent hours catching water bugs and taking mud baths. Well, decades later, these creeks remain an intrinsic part of my life.They have changed over the years right along with the humans who live along their banks. These small rivulets often swell into wide tributaries of the Little Fork River, a main artery of the Rainy River Watershed. This relatively nondescript network of streams provides perfect habitat for the American Beaver, Castor Canadensis, the second largest rodent in the world. The same river system also became perfect habitat for early human settlers to this territory. They, too, saw the many benefits of homesteading beside flowing water. Rivers were highways before there were roads. Both beavers and humans know a good thing when they see it. Here are a few factoidsBeavers live an average of ten years. Thats a lengthy lifespan in the wild. They mate for life and are expert homebuilders. In fact, residential home construction is their main occupation, after keeping the family fed, of course. Their expert craftsmanship is a major factor in their longevity, not unlike humans. Beaver lodges house the entire family Mom, Dad, and kits who reside with their parents for two years before leaving to find a lifetimmate of their own. The lodge is a fortress from predators, a shield from Upper North Americas bitter winter temperatures, and a remarkable example of engineering genius. A beaver lodge in northern Ontario was spotted in a satellite photo and measured close to 700 feet across. And they last many decades whether active or abandoned.To locate the ideal place to build a lodge, beaver utilize a heightened sensitivity to subtle, ever-changing sounds of the flow and volume of moving water. And it must have abundant grass, brush, rocks, mud and mature timber, all materials needed in the construction of the lodge as well as the dams that will impede flowage, producing ponds large and deep enough to protect against intruders. As humans terrace hillsides, beavers terrace stream beds. The dams are complex structures built to last. Just try tearing one apart and youll know what I mean! John and I have attempted to control flooding on our land many times by punching an opening in one of many nearby dams. With axes, adze and hoes, what might begin as a quick and easy fix soon becomes an extremely laborious undertaking. A dam begins small but soon its width and breadth increase, the water behind it slows and deepens, and before long, a once-small mass of debris bridges the creek from bank to bank and is soon wide enough to portage. No matter how hard weve tried to interrupt beavers efforts, more often than not, we have totally failed. The beaver have staked their claim, completely flooding 40 to 50 acres of woods. If undeterred, they will continue building, raising the height of the water even further, claiming more and more territory while dramatically altering the landscape. Beaver are very smart and very able to elude predators, including humans fully-tooled with snares, foot traps, conibears, buckshot, and even dynamite. So, in this contest of man against nature, its your call who to name winner and loser.Beaver were once treasured for their thick, shiny fur that made dapper hats, warm coats and chopper mitts. In fact, their pelts were in such demand that beaver were trapped nearly to extinction. When I moved to Linden Grove, it seemed nary a man over fifty hadnt trapped to supplement his household income. Then came synthetics. As the fur market declined, so did the number of trappers. Now, few remain in the area. For some, its a hobby. But others are contracted by county highway departments responsible for keeping beaver numbers down to prevent highway washouts. This spring, we were visited by three trappers asking to scout and remove beaver from our land. Before granting permission, we conducted a cost-benefit analysis of sorts. You see, these furry fellas dont just make trouble, they make wonderful reservoirs that sustain life even in the driest times of summer wildlife as well as our own. Were avid gardeners with a goal of growing and preserving enough produce to feed us year-round. When the bogs dry up, usually by mid-August, so does our creek. But not with beaver around! The beaver pond supplies a continuous source of water all summer long. For that reason, we thank our lucky stars that were still granted a say over their fate whether to blow their dams or let them stay. We weigh the value of many trees saved against many lives lost. The pond is home to huge numbers of insects, birds, minnows, frogs, and waterfowl that bring us a lot of joy. They will most likely be sacrificed by trapping and then blasting the dam. The nights are awfully quiet after the heavy hand of man has sent a hoard of co-habitating creatures downstream in one furious whoosh! Our smaller dam will be spared. Our garden will be watered. We humans will be left behind, able to live on, privileged, relatively undisturbed with our home still intact. We remind ourselves the manmade mud-plain that remains will soon green up again. And, Glory be!, signs of natures cycle of renewal will become evident again.A few days ago, we spotted wood ducks whod relocated upstream. A bittern, unseen for years, was sighted not far from our culvert. The geese and cranes have stuck around despite the disappearance of our beloved beaver lake. So, let me close with this. Read Anne Dunns book. It can help us understand this ever-changing world in which we live while in no way diminishing its wonder!

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Learning to live with the beaver - Tower Timberjay News