Biotech
Human history has been all but defined by death and disease, plague and pandemic. Advancements in 20th century medicine changed all of that. Now advancements in 21st century medicine promise to go even further. Could we bring about an end to disease? Reverse aging? Give hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind? The answer may be yes. And soon.
Featured
The left–right twist that could rewrite tech
Scientists are harnessing chirality — the left- and right-handedness of molecules — to build better batteries, sharper displays, and more.
Longevity progress is real. So are the scams.
Longevity is in a paradoxical place at the moment, with anti-aging influencers misrepresenting real progress in order to make money.
How a dog’s life could extend yours
Studying animals — from long-lived clams to everyday dogs — is helping scientists understand aging and design therapies to slow decline.
Psychedelics & Mental Health
Living longer — and healthier — starts with boosting your brain
Science is beginning to unravel the reasons behind age-related cognitive decline — and what we can do about it.
Why AI gets stuck in infinite loops — but conscious minds don’t
Anil Seth suggests the difference is that living beings are rooted in time and entropy, a grounding that may be essential for consciousness.
Inside a neuroscientist’s quest to cure coma
Thousands of Americans are trapped in disorders of consciousness. Neuroscientist Daniel Toker is searching for a way out.
Biohacking
Three founders look to the future at Freethink’s inaugural Great Progression event
The tech community came together for the launch of the Great Progression event series, curated by Peter Leyden and produced by Freethink.
We’re able to create new creatures through gene editing. What’s stopping us?
The question isn’t whether we can sculpt new life. The question is what comes next.
This conservationist is trying to bring extinct species back to life
Ryan Phelan, co-founder of Revive & Restore, talks about the future of conservation at Freethink’s Great Progression event.
Ray Kurzweil explains how AI makes radical life extension possible
Life expectancy gains in developed countries have slowed in recent decades, but AI may be poised to transform medicine as we know it.
Vaccines
We purged worms from our bodies — and may have made ourselves sick
Biotech labs are mining worm chemistry to design medicines that calm the immune system without the risks of live infection.
Personalized cancer vaccines are having a moment
Personalized cancer vaccines were a recurring theme at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in 2024.
The threat of avian flu — and what we can do to stop it
Avian flu is infecting cows on US dairy farms, and now a person has caught it — but new research could help us avoid a bird flu pandemic.
More
New obesity treatments could reshape the world
New obesity treatments, including GLP-1 agonists and gene therapies, could make it easier for people to lose weight and keep it off.
“5 stages of grief” is a myth — and knowing that helps us better cope with loss
The “monomyth” model of grieving offers closure and recovery, but in most traditional cultures the dead never leave the living.
Life’s stages are changing – we need new terms and new ideas to describe them
The arc of adult development has changed over the past several decades, in ways that our psychological theories are still catching up with.
One-shot gene therapy for liver disorder works in a small trial
A new gene therapy for the rare liver disorder Crigler-Najjar syndrome was highly effective in a small trial.
A Pink Floyd song was reconstructed from listeners’ brain waves
Training an AI to reconstruct a song from listeners’ brain activity revealed insights about the brain that could lead to better speech BCIs.
Breakthrough creates stem cells without any “memories”
A new method for creating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells includes a memory reset that puts the cells in a more embryonic-like state.
“Light sculpting” chip can rapidly test for thousands of diseases
Stanford researchers have developed a new type of molecular test that works without a cumbersome amplification step.
Scientists discover a gel that whitens teeth and kills 94% of bacteria
Scientists have found that light-activated oxidizing nanoparticles can whiten teeth without causing damage.
A pig kidney is still working in a person after 32 days
A gene-edited pig kidney has been functioning in a person for a record-breaking 32 days and still shows no signs of failure.
Can you manipulate your brain to stop your food cravings?
Research suggests it may be possible to “switch off” the pleasure we experience from eating certain foods, which could curb cravings.
Brain scans reveal the mystery of “hidden consciousness”
Newly identified patterns of injury linked to “hidden consciousness” could lead to better outcomes for people in comas or vegetative states.
Extreme treatment for alcoholism slashes drinking by 90% in monkeys
An in-development treatment for alcoholism dramatically reduced consumption in monkeys that previously drank heavily.
Mental illnesses affect brain structure, but in surprisingly different ways
A new brain mapping study identified commonalities in the brains of people with mental illnesses, and it could lead to better treatments.
“I’ve been here before”: DMT study explores a strange memory phenomenon
DMT can induce a sense of profound familiarity, making users feel as if they have entered an alternate reality they have visited before.
Brain stimulation helps people with Parkinson’s walk
A noninvasive form of brain stimulation developed by Japanese researchers improved the symptoms of Parkinsonian gait in a small trial.
Too much body fat isn’t the problem — malfunctioning body fat is
When fat cells are overloaded with excess nutrients, they become too big and don’t receive enough oxygen, causing them to die.
With “thanabots,” ChatGPT is making it possible to talk to the dead
ChatGPT is making it possible to digitally resurrect the dead in the form of thanabots: chatbots trained on data of the deceased.
Vaccine for common virus could prevent MS
An experimental vaccine designed to prevent an EBV infection might also prevent cancer and multiple sclerosis.
This unique human brain structure may have given us speech
Speech is unique to humans, yet most brain structures involved in speech are also present in Old World monkeys and other primates — except this one.
Existing heart drug may boost treatment for skin cancer
The FDA-approved heart medication ranolazine boosted the efficacy of a BRAF inhibitor in mouse models of melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer.
Special Collection
Collection
The Science of Death
Explore the journey from life to death and beyond. Near-death experiences, death doulas, digital immortality, and more – join us for a thoughtful exploration of one life’s most intriguing and inevitable phenomena with stories from the frontlines of death.
Get inspired with the most innovative stories shaping the world around us.