An interesting anti-aging result in mice. The interesting thing is that it’s already an approved procedure, so it won’t need clinical trials.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Functioning Human Livers
…have been grown from stem cells. They’re tiny, for now, but this seems like a huge breakthrough. And good news for alcoholics, among others.
Artificial Red Blood Cells
…that may perform better than natural ones. That would be a life saver in many cases.
Herd Immunity
This is good news, if true. It could explain why it hasn’t been worse, and probably won’t get worse.
Shackleton
We watched a documentary about the expedition last night. I was struck for the first time by the parallels with Apollo 13: A near disaster from which they recovered only through ingenuity and endurance (the ship was aptly named).
I only mentioned him in the book in terms of the probably apocryphal ad in the Times of London. If I ever do a new edition, I’ll probably talk more about that, as I did with Magellan.
Peter Thiel
A long but interesting article on how he’s attempting to transform society in an actual useful direction.
Climate Versus Covid Models
Cloudy with a chance of politics.
More than a chance.
Space Force To The Rescue
This is the sort of thing that should be done with a Space Guard, not a Space Force. Of course, if Starship happens, it will be moot.
SN4
Elon explains.
So it was a GSE problem, and had nothing to do with the vehicle-design itself, which seems like good news.
[Update a while later]
It’s been a decade since the first Falcon 9 flight. They’ve come quite a ways.
[Thursday-morning update]
SpaceX says that a first orbital flight could still happen this year.
[Bumped]
The Latest On Masks
The New England Journal of Medicine says that wearing them outside medical facilities offers little protection.