Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: neuroscience

If there was a poster child of aging diseases, it would be Alzheimer’s disease. The brains of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease have deposits of amyloids resulting from the loss of proteostasis. Alzheimer’s disease is accompanied by the presence of amyloid beta protein and tau protein as well as large numbers of activated pro-inflammatory immune cells.

The debate about which is primary has raged for many years in the research world, and it is still not clear how these three elements combine to cause disease progression. A new study has attempted to untangle the mystery and suggests the order is beta amyloid, inflammation, then tau, and this study identifies new targets for therapies[1].

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I recently did a 50-min interview with Pratik Chougule on transhumanism:

#105 — What is Transhumanism? ** August 23, 2017 Guest // Zoltan Istvan ** Host // Pratik Chougule, JD

Look around and you’ll see humanity not just engaged with technology but integrated in ways that are unexpected, sophisticated, fascinating, and for many of us, fundamentally alarming. There’s a nostalgia for the simplicity of the pre-internet past… for the time that my teenage kids call “ye olden days.”

It’s pretty clear, however, that we aren’t stuffing tech back into the box anytime soon. And humanity is beset with all sorts of problems. Development of these technologies is accelerating and impacting human intelligence and physiology in ways that might transform what it means to be… human.

How do we wrap our heads around these ideas? How can we explore, plan, and lead responsibly? Join co-host Pratik Chougule and guest Zoltan Istvan as they discuss:

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The old saying “use it or lose it” very much applies to reducing the impact that aging has on the mind and body. Of all the things we can do right now to help stay healthy as we grow older, exercise is probably the most useful.

Supplements have questionable results in humans, and none can really be described as geroprotective due to the lack of data. However, lifestyle and diet are very important in how we age, and caloric restriction has shown some interesting benefits in multiple species, including humans.

However, of all these things, exercise is probably the most important, and staying active can greatly influence our trajectory towards frailty in old age. Many people do not get the exercise they need as they age and, as a result, this can influence how well they age. Certainly, some level of age-related frailty may be a case of neglect and not exercising enough[1].

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British neuroscientist (file pic) Adrian Owen made it his mission to find a way to communicate with patients in a so-called persistent vegetative state.

Since 1997, I had been using hospital brain scanners to test patients in vegetative states to see if they were in fact still conscious, though trapped in their bodies.

I was working as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital when I scanned my first ‘vegetative’ patient, Kate, while showing her photos of her family as she lay inside a brain-scanning machine.

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By 2045, we’ll have expanded the intelligence of our human machine civilization a billion fold. That will result in a technological singularity, a point beyond which it’s hard to imagine…

“Well, by 2020 we’ll have computers that are powerful enough to simulate the human brain, but we won’t be finished yet with reverse engineering the human brain and understanding its methods.”

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My new Op-Ed for The San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Chip-implants-make-humans-more-efficient-12003194.php #transhumanism

Wisconsin company Three Square Market recently announced it will become the first U.S. company to offer its employees chip implants that can be scanned at security entrances, carry medical information and even purchase candy in some vending machines. A company in Europe already did this last year.

For many people, it sounds crazy to electively have a piece of technology embedded in their body simply for convenience’s sake. But a growing number of Americans are doing it, including me.

I got my RFID implant two years ago, and now I use it to send text messages, bypass security codes on my computer, and open my front door. Soon I’ll get the software to start my car, and then my life will be totally keyless.

The type of chip implants in humans varies depending on the manufacturer or purpose of the device. A few hundred thousand people around the world have cochlear implants, which allow deaf people to hear. Others have implants to help with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or even depression. A growing number of transhumanists — people who want to use radical technology in their bodies — have the $60 implant I have. It’s tiny, about the size of a grain of rice, and is injected into the body by a syringe. The injection process — usually in the hand near the thumb — is often bloodless and takes seconds to complete.

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Think again, because over the past 15 years, almost every part of our story, every assumption about who our ancestors were and where we came from, has been called into question. The new insights have some unsettling implications for how long we have walked the earth, and even who we really are.

The past 15 years have called into question every assumption about who we are and where we came from. Turns out our evolution is more baffling than we thought.

By Colin Barras

WHO do you think you are? A modern human, descended from a long line of Homo sapiens? A distant relative of those great adventure-seekers who marched out of the cradle of humanity, in Africa, 60,000 years ago? Do you believe that human brains have been getting steadily bigger for millions of years, culminating in the extraordinary machine between your ears?

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An eye test could predict whether someone could have Alzheimer’s disease years in advance, according to a recent study.

Researchers from Cedars-Sinai and company NeuroVision Imaging found the disease affects the retina, which is the back of the eye, in a similar way to how it impacts the brain. Through this discovery, researchers conducted a noninvasive eye scan in an effort to detect key signs of Alzheimer’s before patients began experiencing symptoms of the disease.

The study, which was published Tuesday in JCI Insight, said a high definition eye scan was able to see the plaque in the retina, which correlated with the amount in the brain. The plaque is a buildup of toxic proteins called amyloid-beta deposits, which are key signs of Alzheimer’s. Build up in the brain may occur as early as two decades before people begin to experience signs of the disease.

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