Category Archives: Transhuman News

Washington, D.C. (August 11, 2017) The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute will present Washington Ideas, the annual must-attend event bringing the most consequential people and issues to Washingtons Penn Quarter, this year taking place from September 26-28. Building on nearly a decade of success, thousands of attendees, and hundreds of speakers, Washington Ideas continues to expand its footprint. Events in 2017 will include interviews with political leaders and those shaping the future of business, science, technology, arts, and journalism; film screenings; topical forums; and evening entertainment.

"As The Atlantic celebrates its 160th anniversary this year, Washington Ideas looks to the past, present, and future to make sense of the most timely, and complex, issues facing the world, said Bob Cohn, president of The Atlantic. Together with our partners at the Aspen Institute, we're eager to convene three days of critically important conversations, enriching ideas, and networking in the heart of the nation's capital.

Washington Ideas brings together leaders from across the country to examine the most important challenges before us, said Elliot Gerson, Executive Vice President of the Aspen Institute. This special event gives attendees the chance to meet and learn from some of the most interesting people. We are proud to co-host this with our partners, The Atlantic."

Washington Ideas will create a Penn Quarter campus on F Street, anchored by Sidney Harman Hall and neighboring restaurant Rosa Mexicano, which will serve as Washington Ideas HQ for concurrent daytime and evening events. The festival will branch out to other venues throughout the neighborhood, holding various gatherings at the Loft at 600 F, Hill Country BBQ, Compass Coffee, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

Among this years Washington Ideas offerings:

The Forum: Conversations and interviews with leading policymakers, industry titans, and cultural icons across two days at Sidney Harman Hall. Confirmed speakers for the Forum include:

Jos Andrs, Chef/Owner, ThinkFoodGroup & minibar by Jos Andrs

Mark Bertolini, Chairman & CEO, Aetna

Lonnie Bunch, Director, Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture

Luis Diaz, Head of Solid Tumor Oncology, Memorial Sloan Ketterings Department of Medicine

Joelle Emerson, Founder & CEO, Paradigm

Sara Horowitz, Chair, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Board of Directors; Founder and Executive Director, The Freelancers Union

Walter Isaacson, President and CEO, The Aspen Institute

Stefanie Joho, Cancer Patient and Advocate

Lisa Melcher, CEO and Tina Stride, President, The Hope Dealer Project

Secretary Steven Mnuchin, United States Secretary of the Treasury

Dennis Muilenburg, Chairman, President & CEO, The Boeing Company

Michele Norris, Executive Director, The Bridge at the Aspen Institute; Founding Director, The Race Card Project

General (Ret.) David Petraeus, Member & Chairman, KKR Global Institute

Christina Tosi, Founder and CEO, Milkbar

Rohit Prasad, VP and Head Scientist, Alexa Machine Learning

Christopher Ruddy, CEO, Newsmax

J. Craig Venter, Co-Founder, Executive Chairman & Head of Scientific Strategy, Human Longevity, Inc.

Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, X

Melanie Whelan, CEO, SoulCycle

Feng Zhang, Co-Inventor, CRISPR, and Core Institute Member, Broad Institute

The Atlantics Jeffrey Goldberg, Steve Clemons, Molly Ball, Julia Ioffe, Ron Brownstein, Matt Thompson, Derek Thompson, and AtlanticLIVE contributors Liza Mundy, Mary Louise Kelly and Alison Stewart are among the moderators to lead conversations at Washington Ideas.

Washington Ideas Headquarters at Rosa Mexicano: For the first time, Washington Ideas will host a second stage at Rosa Mexicano, a few doors down street from the Harman Center. Throughout the day, Rosa will be home to additional events, Ideas Exchange conversations, book talks, happy hours and networking, and more. Further details regarding the programming lineup to be announced.

Food for Thought Lunches: Topical lunch discussions will be held at various locations throughout the Penn Quarter neighborhood on September 27. Each lunch will cover a different topic and will feature expert speakers. Topics this year include: world affairs, food, business and jobs, arts and culture, science, and politics.

Radio Atlantic, Live: Join The Atlantics Radio Atlantic podcast for a live taping and conversation at Sixth and I on one of Americas biggest foreign policy challenges: Russia. Nearly a year after Trump's election, how have U.S. relations with Russia changed and how has Russia already affected our politics and policies? Radio Atlantic hosts Jeffrey Goldberg (editor in chief) and Matt Thompson (executive editor) will lead a timely conversation with staff writer Julia Ioffe and contributing editor Eliot Cohen, a former top State Department Official.

Live Screening of The Vietnam War + Discussion with the Filmmakers: On Thursday, September 28, Washington Ideas will host an exclusive screening of the final episode of Ken Burns and Lynn Novicks PBS series The Vietnam War. The conclusion of the 10-episode series (the first episode of which premieres on September 17) will be simulcast for the Washington Ideas audience, live at Sidney Harman Hall. The screening will be followed by a conversation on stage with Burns, Novick, Tim OBrien, Vietnam veteran and author of The Things They Carried, and Mai Elliott, author of The Sacred Willow, which chronicles the experience of her own Vietnamese family throughout the war. The conversation will be moderated by The Atlantics Jeffrey Goldberg.

The Atlantic + The National Portrait Gallery: To commemorate The Atlantics 160th anniversary, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery will offer guided tours of the portraits of the iconic 19th and 20th century authors who wrote for The Atlantic; tours will happen across the week of Washington Ideas. Featured portraits include Frederick Douglass, Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Gertrude Stein, Carl Sandburg, and more.

Media registration for Washington Ideas is now open. Print and broadcast media seeking a credential must RSVP to The Atlantics Sydney Simon (ssimon@theatlantic.com; 202-266-7338).

Tickets are also on sale now at WashingtonIdeas.com. Early bird ticket prices are currently $150 and will be $200 starting on Monday, August 14. For more information and update, visit WashingtonIdeas.com, follow @WashingtonIdeas, and like Washington Ideas on Facebook for updates.

Presenting Level underwriters include Allstate, Americas Biopharmaceutical Companies, the American Federation of Teachers, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inova, Pfizer, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Bank of America and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are Supporting Underwriters; and Aflac and the Washington, D.C. Economic Partnership are Contributing Underwriters.

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About The Atlantic

Founded in 1857 and today one of the fastest growing media platforms in the industry, The Atlantic has throughout its history championed the power of big ideas and continues to shape global debate across print, digital, events, and video platforms. With its award-winning digital presence TheAtlantic.com and CityLab.com on cities around the world, The Atlantic is a multimedia forum on the most critical issues of our timesfrom politics, business, urban affairs, and the economy, to technology, arts, and culture. The Atlantic was the 2016 National Magazine of the Year. Bob Cohn is President of The Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg is Editor in Chief. Margaret Low is president of AtlanticLIVE, The Atlantic's events division.

About the Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It also has offices in New York City and an international network of partners. For more information, visit http://www.aspeninstitute.org.

Media Contacts:

Sydney Simon The Atlantic ssimon@theatlantic.com // 202-266-7338

Douglas Farrar The Aspen Institute douglas.farrar@aspeninstitute.org // 202-669-2333

Original post:
Washington Ideas: The Atlantic and Aspen Institute to Convene Annual Marquee Festival on September 26-28 in ... - The Atlantic

COLUMN: Of Moles and the Grand Theatre

By Jim Wolff

Grand Theatre Commission

The common garden mole is the downfall of society. I know this because I live in a secluded area with acres upon acres of grass to mow and maintain. And within my peaceful bucolic paradise lurks a majority of the countys mole population. Big moles. Nasty brutes. Ugly things intent on burrowing and tunneling wherever and whenever they feel the need to scar the landscape.

I have tried every trick in the book to keep them out. Poison peanuts, gummy worms, granulated pellets of castor oil, human hair, human urine, smoking them out, drowning them out, chewing gum, building a wall. You name it.Ive tried it. I have literally spent hundreds of dollars trying to rid my lawn of moles. To no avail.

If anything, I think I have made them tougher, cloning a super mole that is resistant to everything. I know this because I have this one mole; Ive named him Brutus, who lives by my crabapple tree. He is about as big as a medium sized German Shepard. Beady eyes, prominent buck teeth and an orangish tint to his glossy fur. Brutus bears a striking resemblance to President Trump.

Now WAIT! I know that remarks like that will get me a whole lot of nasty tweets, hate mail and Letters to the Editor, so I just want to apologize, in advance, if my comparison has offended any moles. Or for that matter any mole lovers, or PFTETOLP (People for the Ethical Treatment of Lawn Pests).

So I have resorted to staking out the lawn, pitchfork in hand, while waiting for Brutus and Co. to dig. Time moves slowly when one is standing in the hot sun, gnats hovering around ones head while watching the ground for the slightest movement. My thought was this: If I could just get rid of Brutus, his underlings would be scared and run off into someone elses yard. There would be chaos, revolts and turmole among his gang members. I could see it all in my mind. "Stay off my turf!" I would shout.

Butlittle did I know, as I watched in one directionBrutus had been tunneling silently behind me until he was but a few feet away from me. Ohit pains me to continue my story.

With an audible pop, he burst through the soil, snarling. I whirled around, dropping my pitchfork in my haste and looked right into the very nearsighted eyes of Brutus! He looked mad! But well fed. A cigarette was dangling from his lip. He stared at me while unwrapping a piece of Wrigleys Doublemint. On his head he was wearing the most outrageous wig of human hair I have ever seen. Talk about scary! It was at this point, I must confess, that regardless of what folklore you may have heard, I have the proof that moles are not repelled by human urine.

I just recently turned 60 years old. And some of you are 60 years old too. But even if youre some punk 40-year-old kid, I would bet that there has been a time in your life where you really had to face the music. Put your money where your mouth is. Really dig down deep inside yourself. And that was what I did at that molement.

I coolly looked at Brutus like he was just some insignificant minor annoyance and said, Mr. Brutus, I am going to make this deal once and once only. Here are five dollars. That ought to buy a pack of cigarettes for you (Pall Moles). Here are two packs of Juicy Fruit. And I have some gummy bears, the good kind, not the poison stuff. Take it and get out. Go back to your business, but let me have my little piece of paradise without all your molestations. Refuse, and one day I will catch up to you or your wife Molenia and you will wish that youd left me alone.

Brutus hesitated for a moment, but then, abruptly, he headed into his tunnel.

I have not seen him since.

..But somehow I seem to have strayed from the original purpose of my articlewhich is this: We all own a little piece of paradise in the Grand Theatre. It is worth protecting and maintaining. There will be lots of events scheduled in the near future including a fundraiser celebrating the life of Keokuk-born Conrad Nagel. We invite you to come face the music. And the dancing. And the acting. Watch for more details. Your current and future support is worthy of a ton of appreciation from us, here on the Grand Theatre Commission. And not one molecule less!

Jim Wolff is a member of the Grand Theatre Commission.

---------------------------------

COLUMN: Is living to 125 too much of a good thing?

By Tom Purcell

Syndicated Columnist

A 125-year life expectancy for human beings? I have zero desire to stick around that long.

Ah, yes, you speak of a debate among scientists over human longevity. I read about it at Business Insider. Some scientists argue that the maximum age humans may live is 115 years, whereas others argue that 125 years is possible.

A hundred and twenty-five years of watching Republicans and Democrats going at it? The heck with that.

Living is rife with challenges, to be sure. But living a long life has its upsides. Wouldnt you want to visit your parents and other family members for a lot more years than most of us are able? Wouldnt you like to see them all at a Sunday dinner several more times than most human beings are able?

Maybe with your family. My family has taken years off of my life!

I see, but wouldnt it be awesome if some of our finest human beings could stick around longer? Don Rickles, one of the greatest entertainers ever, died this year at 91. How great would it be to keep him around for two more decades?

True, but if Rickles were to stick around longer, that means annoying celebrities would stick around, too, and keep yapping at us every time a Republican becomes president.

There are other upsides to a longer life. What if we could keep our greatest minds around longer? Where would the world be if Einstein had another 25 years to unlock the mysteries of the universe?

But what if he figured out ways to extend human life even further, which would require me and the wife to have to keep coming up with new things to bicker about? Who has that kind of energy?

The downsides are a fair point. As people live longer, they could overburden government programs, such as Social Security. Where would we get all the money to support them?

How about we especially extend the lives of the rich so we can take them to the cleaners?

And living is expensive. If you live to 125, how will you pay for your housing and food and everyday expenses?

Thank goodness McDonalds is always hiring, but I for one have no desire to flip burgers at the age of 125.

The costs of medical care are too high for millions now. I imagine that at 125 years of age, ones medical bills would be difficult to manage.

Look, as a middle-aged guy, who is already showing signs of fatigue, here is what I know about living. Life is largely made up of colds, bills, speeding tickets and people who let you down. These experiences are connected together by a series of mundane tasks.

Did anyone tell you how cheerful you can be? Go on.

Well, these drudgeries are occasionally interrupted by a wonderful meal, a really good laugh with friends or a romantic evening with a lovely woman. Then the mundane stuff starts all over again. Who wants 125 years of that?

A lot of people do. The human lifespan has improved significantly in the past few generations. Millions are living healthy lives beyond the age of 80 today, and, when they were younger, few of them expected to live that long. Why not live relatively good lives until 125?

Because then Id really worry about my slacker son.

Why?

Hes 35 years old and still living at home. If we drastically extend lifespans, my wife will have to tell him: Son, youre 100 years old! When are you going to move out of the basement and get a job?

Tom Purcell, author of Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood and Wicked Is the Whiskey, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com.

-----------------------------

LETTER: The real world often intrudes on their world

In Psychology the term cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort experienced by a person who simultaneously holds 2 or more contradictory beliefs, ideas or values.

Since people avoid discomfort, they either change their belief consistent with the new, usually more correct information, or fool themselves into somehow holding onto the false belief. This appears to be a condition that is more common since the election.

A good example is fake news, a whiny, bumper-sticker term that has become popular with Pres. Trump and the Trumpettes. When the real world intrudes on the White House and is reported by the media, Small Hand Luke and his other egg-suckers immediately respond thats just fake news. This term reliably reduces the cognitive dissonance that tortures both the President and his faithful allowing them to discount the serious dysfunction of this White House and the person who sometimes lives there.

Other favorites youll hear from the Golden Hair Club are the investigation into Russian influence is a nothing burger dismissing this attack on our country and our electoral process . Then there is the assault on science, dismissing global warming as impossible because we still have snow. These rationalizations and justifications serve as valuable tools for those whose tool box is sparse.

Steve Miller

Nauvoo, Ill.

Here is the original post:
Today's opinions | Opinion | dailygate.com - Keokuk Gate City Daily

A 125-year life expectancy for human beings? I have zero desire to stick around that long.

Ah, yes, you speak of a debate among scientists over human longevity. I read about it at Business Insider. Some scientists argue that the maximum age humans may live is 115 years, whereas others argue that 125 years is possible.

A 125 years of watching Republicans and Democrats going at it? The heck with that.

Living is rife with challenges, to be sure. But living a long life has its upsides. Wouldnt you want to visit your parents and other family members for a lot more years than most of us are able? Wouldnt you like to see them all at a Sunday dinner several more times than most human beings are able?

Maybe with your family. My family has taken years off of my life!

I see, but wouldnt it be awesome if some of our finest human beings could stick around longer? Don Rickles, one of the greatest entertainers ever, died this year at 91. How great would it be to keep him around for two more decades?

True, but if Rickles were to stick around longer, that means annoying celebrities would stick around, too, and keep yapping at us every time a Republican becomes president.

There are other upsides to a longer life. What if we could keep our greatest minds around longer? Where would the world be if Einstein had another 25 years to unlock the mysteries of the universe?

But what if he figured out ways to extend human life even further, which would require me and the wife to have to keep coming up with new things to bicker about? Who has that kind of energy?

The downsides are a fair point. As people live longer, they could overburden government programs, such as Social Security. Where would we get all the money to support them?

How about we especially extend the lives of the rich so we can take them to the cleaners?

And living is expensive. If you live to 125, how will you pay for your housing and food and everyday expenses?

Thank goodness McDonalds is always hiring, but I for one have no desire to flip burgers at the age of 125.

The costs of medical care are too high for millions now. I imagine that at 125 years of age, ones medical bills would be difficult to manage.

Look, as a middle-aged guy, who is already showing signs of fatigue, here is what I know about living. Life is largely made up of colds, bills, speeding tickets and people who let you down. These experiences are connected together by a series of mundane tasks.

Did anyone tell you how cheerful you can be? Go on.

Well, these drudgeries are occasionally interrupted by a wonderful meal, a really good laugh with friends or a romantic evening with a lovely woman. Then the mundane stuff starts all over again. Who wants 125 years of that?

A lot of people do. The human lifespan has improved significantly in the past few generations. Millions are living healthy lives beyond the age of 80 today, and, when they were younger, few of them expected to live that long. Why not live relatively good lives until 125?

Because then Id really worry about my slacker son.

Why?

Hes 35 years old and still living at home. If we drastically extend lifespans, my wife will have to tell him: Son, youre 100 years old! When are you going to move out of the basement and get a job?

Tom Purcell: can be reached atTom@TomPurcell.com.

See more here:
Living to 125 too much of a good thing | Columns | starbeacon.com - The Star Beacon

By Flora SoutheyFlora Southey , 11-Aug-20172017-08-11T00:00:00Z Last updated on 11-Aug-2017 at 15:51 GMT2017-08-11T15:51:59Z

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Insilico Medicine have teamed up to identify compounds for drug development, using artificial intelligence (AI).

Baltimore, US-based Insilico will use an AI method known as deep learning where a machine learns the best way to achieve an object recognition task - to sort data sets for gene expression, and determine which molecules can stimulate DNA repair.

The University will then be in charge of testing the molecules, Insilicos Qingsong Zhu told Biopharma-Reporter.

Insilico will make in silico predictions and the University of Copenhagen will validate some of the predictions in vitro and in vivo, explained Zhu.

Drug development

Zhu said he hopes the project will result in drug development to extend healthy human longevity.

Many of the age-related diseases, such as Alzheimers disease, Parkinson disease, cardiovascular disease and aging itself are strongly associated with the decline of DNA repair mechanisms, said Zhu.

The Universitys Morten Scheibye-Knudsen also said he hoped the research would benefit older populations.

If we can find some molecules with the ability to repair our DNA, it is not unthinkable that we can continue to increase the limit on human lifespan, said the Universitys Morten Scheibye-Knudsen.

Zhu told us the partners plan to license out the technology to third parties.

Excerpt from:
Artificial intelligence R&D to combat age-related diseases - BioPharma-Reporter.com

Protein associated with longer life helps turn Pinky into the Brain.

Klotho, in ancient Greek mythology, is one of the Fates controlling the span of human destiny tasked as she was with cutting the string that determined the length of a persons life. Klotho is also a naturally occurring hormone in the body. More than two decades ago, Japanese researchers discovered that this hormone plays a role in aging. People with more klotho in their body, tend to live longer and to retain more of their facultiesthat is to stay sharpwell into old age.

There are many elderly people who walk around and have completely normal, sharp vibrant brain function despite the fact that they are much older and the fact that they have a lot of disease toxins in the brain, Dr. Dena Dubal a neurobiologist at the University of California, San Franciscos Memory and Aging Center told Popular Science.

Dubal is the author on a study released today in the journal Cell Reports that looks at what happens to brain function when you inject klotho protein into mice.

Aging researchers like Dubal arent interested in extending life for its own sakethey dont have a Methuselah complexbut rather because aging is the biggest factor for disease. If they can find a way to slow aging, or at least its effects, they might find a way to allow us to avoid the cognitive declines, and diseases such as stroke, heart disease, and diabetes that tend to come as we flip through more pages on the calendar.

A few years ago, we discovered in collaboration with several people that in human populations those people that had higher levels of klotho had better cognitive functions in normal aging, says Dual.

Which is great if you happen to be genetically blessed with higher levels of klotho, less great if youre not.

Earlier studies have looked at the impacts of klotho on longevity and health, including brain health, but they tended to rely on genetically modified mice. The genes of these mice had been modified to allow them to produce more klotho or less.

Those studies found that mice modified to produce more klotho lived longer, which is promising. But despite recent advances, genetically modifying humans is still an ethical minefield away in the future, especially if the modifications are being made to improve wellbeing as opposed to preventing disease. And, genetically altering embryos might help future populations, but it doesnt do much for those of us already living. So, Dubal wanted to see is if mice injected with klothoacting essentially a hormonal supplementwould show cognitive improvements.

The answer, seems to be yes.

To get the result, Dubal and her colleagues injected three types of mice with a portion of the protein. They injected young mice, aged mice, and mice genetically altered to have brains similar to that which we would see in Alzheimers or Parkinsons patients in humans.

Within hours they showed better cognitive function, says Dubal.

Since you cant exactly administer a mouse an IQ test, they assessed brain power based on the mices ability to navigate a series of water mazes, in an experiment that sounds on par with human a trip to Wisconsins famed waterslide park, The Dells.

They found that mice that had daily injections and were better able to navigate the maze (as measured by the distance traveled to find a hidden platform) than their control group peers. In a classic example of work smarter, not harder, the klotho mice were just much more efficient seekers.

We tested them two weeks later in a different cognitive test and they were still smarter, says Dubal, which suggested that getting the klotho protein into their bodies combined with brain training and stimulation had a long-lasting effect in their brain. Because the half-life of the protein is only seven and a half hours long, any of the protein should have been long out of their system.

There are a few caveats.

First, this was an experiment in micenot in humans. While its incredibly promising, the study results are short term and they werent looking for side effects. The pace at which a promising scientific study is turned into a supplement of dubious efficacy is stunning these days, so please dont subject yourself to some back-alley klotho injection. Between resveratrol and superfoods weve been there before.

At the same time, we know that klotho levels can be affected not only by genetics but also by stress. If you want to help your body keep its klotho levels at your own peak you might want to try proven stress reduction techniques like exercise and chilling out about your own impending mortality.

Finally, the researchers arent sure how klotho seems to be generating this effect because the protein is too big to pass from the body into the brain. For a long time, weve studied the brain in isolation from the body with the brain mostly telling the body what to do, and the body acting like a series of censors that give the brain useful data. But this study like our growing understanding of the connection between our microbiome and brain health, and exercise and brain health, this study touches on our growing understanding of how the body connects to the brain to help make the brain more resilient.

Continued here:
An extra dose of this longevity hormone helped make mice smarter - Gears Of Biz