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 missing tech case for how we create an era of abundance
AI and other new technologies could make things that are costly and scarce today, cheap and abundant for all tomorrow.
The next era of psychedelics may be precision-designed states of consciousness
A look inside Mindstate Design Labs’ effort to design drugs that reliably produce specific states of consciousness.
What is The Great Progression: 2025 to 2050?
We have a historic opportunity to harness AI and other transformative technologies in order to make a much better world in the next 25 years.
Psychedelics & Mental Health
How Neuralink’s chief competitor is tapping into the brain without surgery
Synchron’s brain-computer interfaces do not require brain surgery, but travel to the brain through the jugular.
How to reclaim meaning in a changing world
What if the barrier to a fulfilled life isn’t technology, it’s culture?
The exciting research that may cure Parkinson’s
GeneCode is developing a drug it hopes won’t just alleviate Parkinson’s symptoms but also protect and restore patient’s neural health.
Biohacking
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.
Boosted Breeding and beyond: 3 tech trends that could end world hunger
A world without hunger is possible, and the development and deployment of new farming technologies could be one key to manifesting it.
New AI generates CRISPR proteins unlike any seen in nature
An AI that generates CRISPR proteins is opening the door to gene editors with capabilities beyond what we’ve found in nature.
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
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.
One shot recreates younger immune systems, in mice
An antibody treatment designed to revitalize an aging immune system delivers “surprising” results in elderly mice.
More
Alternative funeral options are changing how we honor our dead
A small, yet growing number of people are starting to choose funeral options outside traditional burial or cremation.
LSD effective as major depression therapy in phase 2 trial
MindMed and University Hospital Basel have announced top line results for their phase 2 trial.
Scientists figure out why tardigrades are nearly indestructible
Tardigrades have been frozen, boiled, exposed to extreme doses of radiation, and remarkably still survive. How?
Scientists train ants to sniff out cancer in just 30 minutes
Ants were just as accurate as cancer-sniffing dogs. Better yet, they could be trained in minutes rather than months.
Study finds CPR patients may frequently have near-death experiences
In a study of CPR patients across the US and UK, researchers found new evidence about near-death experiences.
Nurses are breaking the mold to set out on their own
Tech platform Hydreight wants to help nurses go into business for themselves by being a turnkey solution.
DMT appears effective for depression up to six months later
Small Pharma has announced the results of a six-month follow-up for their phase 2a trial of DMT for depression.
Some cancers shouldn’t be treated
We’re detecting and aggressively treating more tumors than ever before. But we’re also over-treating more cancers then ever.
“Sunshine Calls” help depression and loneliness, study finds
A trial of “Sunshine Calls” found that the empathy-based phone calls helped reduce depression symptoms in older patients.
“Nanosyringes” can inject medicine into a single cell
MIT researchers have turned a system found in bacteria into programmable “nanosyringes” for injecting proteins into human cells.
One shot could stop severe bleeding and save thousands of lives
A potentially lifesaving treatment to stop severe postpartum hemorrhage could soon be more accessible to the people who need it the most.
Macaque monkeys shrink their social networks as they age — just like elderly people
Macaque monkeys reduce their social networks as they get older – research suggests evolutionary roots of the same pattern in elderly people.
One way to speed up clinical trials: Skip right to the data with electronic medical records
It takes around 17 years for medical research to translate into clinical practice — why not use EMR data to speed things up?
New drug delivery tech could ensure you never forget your meds
Rice University’s new drug delivery tech uses biodegradable microparticles to administer medications exactly when and where they are needed.
Tuberculosis kills over a million people a year. New breakthroughs may help humanity fight back.
The world needs a tuberculosis vaccine, but the challenge trials that could help are impossible to run. Two new approaches look to change that.
Nasal COVID-19 vaccine outperforms mRNA shots in new study
A live attenuated vaccine for COVID-19 that delivered via a nasal spray outperformed several shots in a preclinical study.
Epilepsy surgery has a success rate of only 50%. This digital brain may change that.
Using patient data and AI, French researchers have created a digital model of the brain to figure out which brain region needs removed.
Viruses cause 200+ diseases. This one drug may be able to treat them all.
New Zealand-based startup Kimer Med wants to create an antiviral that would be effective against many known viruses — and unknown.
The secrets of cooperation
Most people care what others think of them. In many situations, that can be leveraged for the common good — cooperation.
New mRNA therapy could bring an end to peanut allergies
A new peanut allergy treatment based on mRNA could potentially lead to therapies that prevent all types of allergies in people.
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.
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