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Interview: CBS Sunday Morning Primetime Special “Forever Young: Searching for the Fountain of Youth”
I was interviewed for a segment on cryonics that aired in a CBS Sunday Morning primetime special titled “Forever Young: Searching for the Fountain of Youth” in November 2021.
Meet Arrokoth
Meet Ultima Thule (later designated 486958 Arrokoth.)
“Getting some air, Atlas?”
Boston Dynamics occasionally uploads these short videos demonstrating their latest robotics technology and capabilities. I’m always amazed by the leap forward in movement smoothness and efficiency. 🤖
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My Statement About Transhumanism, Life Extension, and Related Organizations and Movements
I am no longer involved with most transhumanist, life extension, singularity, and other futurist and emerging technology organizations and movements.
Second Dose of Vaccine & I’m Thankful
A lot of my friends and family were concerned when I reported side effects from my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. I appreciate your love and concern and I’m so sorry that I scared you! You make me feel cared for and loved!
I want to be clearer about this than I was last…
h+
Richard designed, developed, and maintained the original h+ Tucson website as well as the expanded h+ website for multiple chapters and new transhumanist-related content, including a gallery of transhumanist art, links, and other resources.
Space as Solace During a Government Shutdown
The recent space activities I’m writing and posting about provide solace during this government shutdown that has furloughed most NASA and related departments employees and contractors.
New Year, New Day, New Image of Arrokoth
During a morning press briefing aired on NASA TV on New Year’s Day 2019, New Horizons mission team leaders revealed the latest best image of 486958 Arrokoth.
New Horizons at 486958 Arrokoth
6.5 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away from where some Earthlings are celebrating New Year’s Eve, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is beginning its close flyby of a tiny world in the Kuiper Belt known as Ultima Thule (later designated 486958 Arrokoth.)
InSight Lander on Mars
As we do, the HiRISE team took a high resolution image of the InSight lander safe on the surface of Mars.
The Economic Singularity by Calum Chace
Much of The Economic Singularity by Calum Chace is devoted to supporting the argument that machines will take over many and eventually most jobs from humans.
Now Humanity Feels the Tug of Proxima b, Too
It’s good to be skeptical, but it’s also nice to see rumors confirmed by real and exciting announcements: the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced today the detection of an exoplanet orbiting the nearby star Proxima Centauri. At a minimum mass 1.3 times that of the Earth’s, Proxima b might be a rocky world. With an orbit of 11.2…
Frontier Channel 16 Years Later
I started posting online news and commentary about science and technology on January 18, 2000, and I eventually named that effort Frontier Channel. After a few weeks of short posts, I didn’t get back to posting again until January 2002. Two years after that, I finally started posting in earnest, and Frontier Channel enjoyed a nice run with frequent articles through…
Regarding Rumors of Earth-Like Planet Orbiting Proxima Centauri
We’ve been here before: the media gets wind of a possible discovery made by a long-running science project and before there is a peer-reviewed scientific paper published and a press conference, speculation runs wild. In the age of social media, gossip spreads at the speed of the share, and in this digital game of telephone, the…
Recent Article about Kim Suozzi, Cryonics, and Alcor in The New York Times
Three years ago this October, Kim Suozzi spoke at the Alcor 2012 Conference about her impending death due to brain cancer and her hopes in cryonics and technology for a second future. I remember it was a remarkable, difficult, and emotional talk and I also remember the applause when she finished speaking. She passed away a…
Pluto Before New Horizons
Consider what those of us can see in the night sky with healthy eyes, without any tools, far from city lights. Away from the dazzle of Sun’s day the Moon at night is, of course, the brightest above all. The visible stars make an obvious and fixed, so it seems, pattern that fills the celestial hemisphere.…
Pluto and Charon in Color and in Tantalizing Detail
[Post edited on Monday, June 22, 2015 to correct my misunderstanding about the provenance of the remarkable color image below.] Tonight I was browsing the latest raw images of Pluto and Charon taken by New Horizons today from only 27.7 million kilometers away and I realized that when you zoom in, Charon is just beginning…
New Horizons at Pluto
This is it! Pluto is the last of the classical nine planets to be visited by a spacecraft from Earth. The New Horizons spacecraft will take close-up images and capture other useful data as it speeds by Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015. This will complete the imaging grand tour of our solar system…
CES 2015 and the TV of Your Dreams
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2015 is this week, so there are all sorts of television technologies being shown off by consumer electronics companies. Here is a brief breakdown, as I understand it: Ultra HD (4K) The next jump up in television screen resolution is Ultra HD, offering 4 times the number of pixels in…
Meet Me in WhatsApp
While Sarah Lacy’s “Follow the photos: The real reason Facebook just paid almost 10% of its market cap for WhatsApp” analysis is well done and likely part of the rationale behind Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp for a staggering $19 billion, I think SimonDSG and samueljesse in the comment section are closest to articulating what is…
The Future Wants You Healthy
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. Last year I turned 40 years old. Within thirty years I will be 70. I’m participating in The Quantified Diet study because I want to be active, healthy, and involved over the next few decades. These thirty years cover various mind-boggling predictions about technology…
The Bittersweet Years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0cXgr0QIN8 Susan Fonseca gave a talk last January at a TEDx event in San Jose, California about waiting for promising emerging technologies to arrive. Her father passed away for need of an organ despite promising advances in 3-D printing. Fonseca’s experience is a poignant illustration of what I refer to as “The Bittersweet Years”. Technological…
Technology Trends in 2013
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. Internet In the second quarter of 2013, Akamai found that 24% of those people with internet connectivity in the United States had speeds higher than 10 Mbps, allowing them to stream audio and high definition video with relative ease. Globally, the percentage stood at…
Race Against the Machine by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Race Against the Machine is only 5 chapters long, but it provides perhaps the most cogent explanation yet for how technology can lead to both incredible productivity gains and an increasing divide between classes.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Issaacson’s biography of Jobs is a fantastic book, and it confirms my suspicion that the coming decades are going to be devastating, hopeful, terrifying, and haunting, all at once, simply because we humans have yet to fully comprehend what technology has unleashed.
Craig Mod Visits ROBOT RESTAURANT
Craig Mod Visits ROBOT RESTAURANT Craig Mod describes eloquently and with great humor a strange new place. And, yes, ROBOT RESTAURANT is now my number one most desired place to visit in all the world.
Udacity Pivots and Education Remains Difficult
While tens of thousands of people might sign up for a single massive open online course (MOOC), very few of them complete the course, and very few of those demonstrate competence with and retain what they have learned. So Udacity – founded by MOOC proponent Sebastian Thrun – has pivoted, slightly, according to this article from…
News Bytes – Wednesday, June 19, 2013
3-D Printing Via TechCrunch: “Stratasys Acquiring MakerBot in $403M Deal, Combined Company Will Likely Dominate 3D Printing Industry” Robotics Indiegogo project: “Help Make Me the World’s Smartest Robot” Space Science Kickstarter project: Planetary Resources’ “ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone” Kickstarter project reaches U.S.$1 million with 11 days to go METI “Shouting at the Cosmos”…
“Kurzweil joins Google” – KurzweilAI
“Kurzweil joins Google to work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing” – KurzweilAI I think many of us are probably overreacting a bit to this news, but the announcement certainly evokes visions of a nexus of activities and breakthroughs leading to the Technological Singularity. The announcement, though, is short on detail and long…
Craig Mod’s Subcompact Publishing Concept
Craig Mod is writer, designer, and publisher exploring the possibilities of digital books. He recently wrote about “Subcompact Publishing” that spawned a lot of discourse across the web. As you may recall, this year I have been spending a lot of time posting about digital publishing, in fact devoting one of my boards on Pinterest…
News Bytes – Thursday, December 06, 2012
“Manufacturing coming back to the United States” and “YouTube redesign”, in today’s News Bytes here on Frontier Channel.
The Jobs Problem: Discuss
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. Last time I offered a few suggestions about what you and I can do about the jobs problem, being that this is a problem of demographics and technology, and you and I are technology enthusiasts. Local, national, and global discussions that FINALLY places demographics…
The Jobs Problem
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. Last week’s jobs report from the United States Department of Labor was HORRIFIC, but this is not a problem of politics or ideology problem; it is a problem of demographics and technology: The trends are unprecedented. Politicians are pointing fingers and thinking linearly, instead of…
Jason Silva
Post 3 of 3 about the people using video and other media to help inspire all of us to discuss and create our own shared future. I am regularly watching their latest thought-provoking videos. Jason Silva has emerged as a leading spokesperson for the call to create a positive future for all of humanity. Whether…
Ramona Pringle
Post 2 of 3 about the people using video and other media to help inspire all of us to discuss and create our own shared future. I am regularly watching their latest thought-provoking videos. Ramona Pringle created and hosts “rdigitalife”, a web series about “the evolving relationship betwen humanity and technology”. The series began earlier…
Anna Stillwell
Post 1 of 3 about the people using video and other media to help inspire all of us to discuss and create our own shared future. I am regularly watching their latest thought-provoking videos. Anna Stillwell and The Human Project [DEFUNCT] are using diversity as a powerful tool for exploring – and defining – humanity, technology, and…
Technology Trends in 2014 (from 2012)
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. (While these trends are United States-centric, most of them also apply to other developed countries, and will soon apply to developing countries as well.) Internet A significant fraction of households now have 100-200 mbps broadband connections, with pockets of 400 mpbs connections spreading to…
Technology Trends in 2012 (From 2012)
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. (While these trends are United States-centric, most of them also apply to other developed countries, and will soon apply to developing countries as well.) In 2012, nearly everyone will benefit from faster internet speeds, 1080p video will be everywhere, vast and flexible LCD displays…
Fundraising for Emerging Technologies Organizations in 2012
The following emerging technology organizations are raising money for 2012. Over the past few years the amount of money being donated to these types of causes has grown exponentially, but that was starting from about zero. Now that ideas like healthy life extension, accelerating technology, Friendly AGI and the Technological Singularity have gone mainstream, there…
Kickstarter – The Methuselah Generation
Trailer for a documentary – filmed in 3D – about longevity. The filmmakers are raising money to finish the film via Kickstarter.
Digital Media is Just a Battle That Will Soon Be Long Forgotten
Google took Google Music, previously a cloud storage solution for music files, out of beta today and added Google+ integration and music purchases from three of the four major labels as well as many independent labels. The result? An iTunes competitor and most of the pieces for a digital media platform to rival the platforms…
Kickstarter – Hypothes.is – Taking peer review to the Internet.
Kickstarter – Hypothes.is – Taking peer review to the Internet.
Google+ Zero
When Google Wave was announced, I immediately took to a platform that seemed to combine all of the productivity tools I used. It was an exciting time and my brain was full of ideas about how Wave would fit into work and the other projects I was interested in starting. When Wave was cancelled, I…
The Rise of Human-to-Machine Communication
From the perspective of you and me, Web 2.0 has been all about human-to-human communication. Sure, this communication is mediated by increasingly sophisticated machine-to-machine interactions, but from blogs to social networks to new media, best practices to graphic design to standards, we consider human-to-human communication to be central to the web as we know it…
Kurzweil AI News: “Discovery may lead to cure for drug addiction”
Kurzweil AI News: “Discovery may lead to cure for drug addiction” The debate over whether or not it is possible to cure addiction, adultery, obesity, mental illness, and even criminal behavior is over. While the interactions between genetics and environment are complex, the tools to manipulate ourselves at the molecular level are emerging, nature versus nurture…
Apple’s Subscription Gamble
Apple announced their digital media subscription service for the iOS App Store today and reaction has been all over the place, though for certain classes of people it has been overwhelmingly negative. Developers and publishers especially are not happy with the service requirements. For digital media like streaming video from Netflix, Hulu Plus; streaming music…
“Back to the Future” Photography
“Back to the Future” Photography Very cool idea from a photographer with amazing (and sometimes a little NSFW and surprising) results.
“A Fight to Win the Future: Computers vs. Humans” in NYTimes
“A Fight to Win the Future: Computers vs. Humans” in NYTimes “Virtually any job that now involves answering questions and conducting commercial transactions by telephone will soon be at risk.”
h+ Mafia? No.
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. What did Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch find when she took a look “Inside the DNA of the Facebook Mafia”? There is the same kind of “in the family” interactions between the various companies started by ex-Facebook employees as there are for the other technology…
Donate to Emerging Technology-Related Organizations
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. The link above is a bundle of several links to fundraisers for emerging technology-related organizations. Donations have risen significantly in the past two years as transhumanism, emerging technologies, and the Technological Singularity concept have reached mainstream audiences. The list below is just a sample…
Prediction: 1080p Digital Media in 2011
Although a few companies already claim to stream 1080p video, Apple will announce 1080p television and movie downloads and streaming for purchase or rental through iTunes and Apple TV in the United States, sparking a rash of similar announcements from other digital media vendors like Amazon and Netflix. The H.264 video will play back at…
Rosetta at 21 Lutetia
The Rosetta spacecraft has returned the first images from its flyby of the asteroid 21 Lutetia. The image on the right was taken while the spacecraft was approximately 80,000 kilometers away and it shows a lumpy, cratered world. Lutetia is approximately 100 km in diameter. It is the largest asteroid yet visited by a spacecraft.…
Avatar’s Accomplishments
Avatar has accomplished more than most movies in recent memory, including the introduction of ideas long popular with transhumanists to a more mainstream audience. Is it also helping to lead to more public acceptance of transhumanism and emerging technologies?
Interim Technologies Big at CES 2010
Based on the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held this week in Las Vegas, Nevada, consumers in 2010 can look forward to a bounty of ebook readers, 3-D HDTVs, and computers in a wide range of body types. However, technologies just now breaking out of the lab promise to make many of these new consumer electronics…
Ten Years of Frontier Channel
Ten years of Frontier Channel, including predictions, commentary, and news reporting.
Avatar: Transhumanist Perspective
James Cameron’s Avatar is an astonishing and must-see movie. It is also a huge disappointment.
Grassroots Effort to Raise Money for SENS Research
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. The SENS Foundation and supporters of radical life extension are turning to a social networking platform in an attempt to raise over $1 million for research. By the end of 2009 they hope to sign up 10,000 people committed to donating $100 each. The…
The Seas Beckon
The Seasteading Institute has a busy fall season coming up with their second annual conference and the Ephemerisle “floating festival of politics, community and art.”
Growing Pains for Digital Media
2008 ended with a bang for digital media: growing audiences for streaming long-form video, several deals bringing ebooks to the iPhone, and rumors that Apple and the Big Three music labels were hashing out a deal to complete the removal of digital rights management (DRM) from the music on iTunes that begin with EMI. That…
Four Years Later – “Science, Pseudoscience, and My Love of the End of the World”
Frontier Channel covers the Technological Singularity, cryonics, transhumanism, and other topics some might consider fringe or even pseudoscience. Are they?
The State of Digital Media 2008
It is that time of the year to highlight the key digital media developments in 2008, those trends leading into 2009, and where digital media is heading by the end of the next decade.
Friend of Chris Heward, Friend of Your Own Life Extension
Life extension researcher Chris Heward was recently diagnosed with cancer. See how you can help.
Top Killers Identified By World Health Organization
Cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases and cancer remain the world’s top killers of humans according to “The Global Burden of Disease” report from the World Health Organization (WHO).
SS08 Emerging Technologies Workshop on Twitter
Twitter-ing at the SS08 Emerging Technologies Workshop.
The Singularity Summit 2008 Coverage
The Singularity Summit is held each year by The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. This year the event will be held in San Jose, California and Frontier Channel will be there! Stay tuned for updates from the SS08 Emerging Tech Workshop on Friday, October 24 and the Singularity Summit on Saturday, October 25, 2008.
Cities on the Sea
Head out to sea! Some activists, engineers and technology enthusiasts are hoping to build homes and cities on the high seas, far away from existing governments and deep within a new frontier. The Seasteading ’08 Conference will be held on October 10, 2008.
First Beams Circulate the Large Hadron Collider
Photons take a trip around the Large Hadron Collider for the first time and a University of Arizona researcher speaks to the public about the success. Dr. Elliot Cheu explained just what this complex machine is setting out to do and how it could change the way we understand the universe.
Šteins Flyby Animated
Along with first images, anaglyphs and initial data results from Rosetta’s successful flyby of Asteroid (2867) Šteins, mission team members put together an animation of the flyby: More Information Rosetta Rosetta Blog Press Release: “Steins: A diamond in the sky” Related Books [amazon-product]0387726721[/amazon-product] [amazon-product]1402025726[/amazon-product] [amazon-product]038777517X[/amazon-product]
Šteins Up Close
Hours after its successful flyby of “the jewel of the solar system”, the robotic traveler Rosetta continues to return data from the encounter. From a point of light discovered in 1969 into a world of new vistas, here is Asteroid (2867) Šteins: At a press conference to announce preliminary results and to show the first…
Amazon Video On Demand Arrives
Credit: Screenshot of Amazon Video On Demand [REVIEW] — Late last year Adobe released an upgrade to their ubiquitous Flash software that enabled higher quality video. In response, overall video streaming quality on the web has improved as various video services have upgraded their offerings. Amazon is the latest to make the leap, turning their…
Asteroid (2867) Šteins Flyby Coming
Rosetta, the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft on its way to orbit and deploy a lander on a comet, is now approaching Asteroid (2867) Šteins. The flyby will bring the spacecraft within 800 km of Šteins on Friday evening, September 5, 2008. The ESA will provide a webcast about the event beginning on September 06,…
Planetary Provenance – Venus
Venus is the Earth-that-could-have-been and the Earth-that-still-might-be. Our so called sister planet orbits second from the Sun. Cloudy, hot, and unhospitable to life as we know it, Venus demonstrates as well as Mars why comparative planetary science can greatly improve understanding of our own planet. The greenhouse effect on Venus results in a poorly understood phenomena…
Planetary Provenance – Mercury
I will be speaking at the Sunday, September 7 meeting of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix about “Images of Mars and Interplanetary Science.” This series of posts in preparation for the event will explore current spacecraft activities in planetary science. After the astronomy revolt that left the solar system with eight planets, four dwarf…
Aging 2008
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. On Friday, June 27, 2008 from 4:00 PM through 8:00 PM PDT at UCLA, scientists and other anti-aging luminaries will discuss “Aging: the Disease, the Cure, the Implications,” [defunct link] a Methuselah Foundation co-sponsored event. The ADCI event is open to the public and…
Raw Data from Enceladus Available
One of many new Cassini images received after yesterday’s successful Enceladus flyby. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute – “W00043237.jpg” Slow server speeds mark the arrival of new raw data on the Cassini-Huygens website taken during yesterday’s successful Enceladus flyby. In addition to the images, Cassini sampled the material in Enceladus’ water ice plumes erupting from…
Closest Enceladus Flyby Yet
Cassini took this image of Enceladus’ water ice plumes on November 27, 2005. New pictures and other data from the most recent flyby on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 are expected on Thursday, March 13, 2008. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute – “Jet Blue” NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has successfully completed the closest flyby of Saturn’s mysterious…
MESSENGER Returns First Image of Never Viewed Side of Mercury
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington – “MESSENGER’s First Look at Mercury’s Previously Unseen Side” A heavily cratered side of the planet Mercury never before seen has been revealed by the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft. A single image was released by NASA this evening after…
The 2.0 Project on Marblejars
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Commentary] [Defunct video and link] Mark McAllister started The 2.0 Project a couple years ago to bring attention to the plight of those who cannot secure the insurance or funding required for cryonics preservation services due to pre-existing conditions. I interviewed him for a…
Events Listing Moved
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. The sidebar list of upcoming events has been moved to a new website: h+ Events [defunct link] This new site is part of a collection of sites and services related to transhumanism under the h+ banner. All future science and technology event listings…
Transhumanist Organization Announces Fundraising Campaign
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [DISCLOSURE: Richard Leis, Jr. is an adviser of a transhumanist club at the University of Arizona and has donated US$150 to the World Transhumanist Association for this fundraising campaign.] The World Transhumanist Association (WTA) announced yesterday the launch of a fundraising campaign [defunct link]…
Five Planets Make Record System
Image Credit: NASA – “Plentiful Planetary System” – “This artist’s concept shows four of the five planets that orbit 55 Cancri, a star much like our own.” NASA announced during a press telecon this morning the discovery of a fifth planet in the 55 Cancri system. This sets a new record for exoplanets in a…
Armadillo Aerospace’s Latest Competition Attempt Fails
With the moon visible overhead, Armadillo Aerospace unsuccessfully attempted to win the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge at the Wirefly X PRIZE Cup this weekend at Holloman Air Force Base. The only competitor of nine ready to go for the event, Armadillo Aerospace, led by John Carmack of Doom and Quake fame, experienced both successes…
X PRIZE Cup – Table of Contents
A race to space is shaping up in the private industry and once a year the public is invited to see the latest breakthroughs, vehicles, and competitions intended to accelerate this progress. The Wirefly X PRIZE Cup was held October 26 through 28 at the Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA. Combined…
HiRISE Releases False Color Images of Potential MSL Landing Sites
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) team today released a slew of new false color images of the surface of Mars to the public, the culmination of many months of software and automation development.
Alcor Conference – Table of Contents
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. Frontier Channel liveblogging from the 7th Alcor Conference: Day 1 Day 2
Sputnik 1: 50 Years Later
[History] | [Commentary] Plenty of space blogs, organizations, and media outlets are marked last Thursday as the 50 year anniversary of the first artificial satellite in Earth orbit, Sputnik 1. On October 04, 1957 Russia surprised the United States by demonstrating their technological prowess with the successful launch of Sputnik 1. The “artificial moon” did…
Rumor: Artificial Life
Although the following news appears to have been confirmed by Craig Venter, it should be viewed as rumor until there is an official announcement. The Guardian is reporting that Venter and a team of scientists have created artificial life, in the form of an artificial chromosome that can make use of another organism’s cellular machinery…
Alcor Conference – Chris Heward
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] [Recap] Chris Heward discussed his work on the “Kronos Longitudinal Aging Study (KLAS)” as a measurement of human aging. KRONOS Science Laboratory [defunct link] is a research institution in Phoenix, AZ, USA. Heward showed a graph of progress…
Alcor Conference – Christine Peterson
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] Christine Peterson presented “Good News, Bad News, Surprising News” about life extension. She now spends about half time studying life extension as an enthusiast. She began by stating that terminology matters. Which terms are best: life extension, health…
Alcor Conference – Calvin Mercer
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] [Recap] Calvin Mercer asked “Cryonics and Religion: Friends or Foes?” Cryonics, Mercer believes, will require support from more people than just scientists, including religious people. How should cryogenics supporters present these ideas to religious people? How the discussion…
Alcor Conference – Morning Break
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] Popcorn, cookies, and pretzels. We talked to a couple who are musicians and Alcor members about how art can be used to promote life extension and transhumanism.
Alcor Conference – Calvin Mercer
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] [Recap] Calvin Mercer asked “Cryonics and Religion: Friends or Foes?” Cryonics, Mercer believes, will require support from more people than just scientists, including religious people. How should cryogenics supporters present these ideas to religious people? How the discussion…
Alcor Conference – Steven Harris
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] [Recap] Steven Harris is a researcher developing “Rapid Body Cooling for Prevention of Brain Damage.” Rapid body cooling technologies are important to both cryonics and emerging short-term treatments. Hypothermia induced by lowering the body temperature by 4 degrees…
Alcor Conference – Morning Panel
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] Day two of the Alcor Conference. The day began with the “Human Cryopreservation and Critical Care Medicine Panel,” including Alcor’s Tanya Jones, critical care physician David Crippen and bioethicist Leslie Whetstine and moderated by Aschwin de Wolf. [Recap]…
Alcor Conference – Alcor Board of Directors Panel
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] Stephen Van Sickle, Ralph Merkle, Michael R. Seidl, and Brian Wowk of the Alcor Board of Directors answered questions from the audience for the last session of the day. The Board addressed questions about the current state of…
Alcor Conference – Aubrey de Grey
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] [Recap] Does Aubrey de Grey really need an introduction at this point? His public proposal for repairing and reversing the damage of aging, SENS, and his public admission of being an Alcor member were the topics he discussed…
Alcor Conference – Afternoon Break
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] Ice cream! Networking! Being nearly run over by busy organizers!
Alcor Conference – Michael West
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] [Recap] Another approach to recovery of cryonics patients, or patients prior to requiring cryonics, is regenerative medicine, that is, the ability to use stem cells to rebuild tissues. Michael West from Advanced Cell Technology discussed “Immortal Cells: The…
Alcor Conference – Ralph Merkle
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] [Recap] Nanotechnology. Once only an obscure buzzword among fringe techno-progressives, nanotechnology has emerged both as a multi-billion dollar industry and a controversial technology that could lead, according to some, to a prosperous future of plenty, or, according to…
Alcor Conference – Luncheon
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. [Alcor Conference – Table of Contents] It is time for lunch. These breaks, lunches, and dinners are includes in the conference package and sponsored and funded by organizations or wealthier Alcor members. These sponsors have been mentioned between talks.
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Commentary
You, the Dying
I loved Digg before I realized what it was, before I undestood who Time Magazine was really talking about when they declared their 2006 Person of the Year was You. This is the Digg promise of socially selected content, around 11:00 PM on March 15, 2007 from the Technology Newly Popular page: “[Picture] Digg’s Lead…
Imaginary Monsters and Human Beings
People use their anonymity on the Internet to safely explore who they really are. This helped me to make my homosexuality something manageable to consider long before I had sex for the first time. I am comfortable enough now to no longer need anonymity. I take ownership of who I am, labeled with my name…
It’s Okay
It’s okay to send a teenager against his will to be cured of his homosexuality [defunct link]. It’s okay to process animals through “rendering plants” [defunct link] if they are “unfit for human consumption.” It’s okay to seize someone’s home [defunct link] against their will if it’s in the public good. Yes, I use to…
Interviews
“It’s about life” – Mark McAllister and the 2.0 Project
Read Richard’s current thoughts about transhumanism and related fringe topics here. The language in the article below about people with health conditions and disabilities is problematic. Mark McAllister is a twenty-year-old man with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a rare condition that causes the degeneration of motor neurons and the weakening and wasting away of muscle.…
An Interview with Becca Walker
Gender issues such as the role of women in science and technology were brought to a head recently when Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard University, suggested at an academic conference that intrinsic differences between males and females may explain why there are fewer women in science, mathematics and engineering. Summers, according to his defenders,…
An Interview with Geologist Jay Quade – Page 1
The Desert Laboratory sits on Tumamoc Hill overlooking the city of Tucson, Arizona. Rainfall amounts here have been above normal this winter and the desert is in bloom. I am sitting in the office of Dr. Jay Quade, from where the view of both Tucson and the desert is spectacular. A faculty member in the…
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