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
Two African countries first to approve Oxford’s malaria vaccine, with 20 million doses on the way
Ghana and Nigeria have become the first two nations to approve Oxford’s vaccine against malaria.
How frontotemporal dementia, the syndrome affecting Bruce Willis, changes the brain
What is FTD, the type of dementia that leads to inappropriate social behavior, impulsivity, and loss of empathy?
UCLA’s humanoid soccer robot is headed to the “RoboCup”
A first-of-its-kind soccer robot built by researchers at UCLA is heading to France to compete in the annual RoboCup.
Hollow “seed” shrinks cancerous tumors from the inside
A new drug delivery system for pancreatic tumors could dramatically decrease medication dosages, helping minimize unpleasant side effects.
The imagination effect: A history of placebo power
The famous placebo effect has a long, rich history — it certainly had an outsized role in the medicine of centuries past.
A mosquito factory will create billions of biters in Brazil
The World Mosquito Project’s plan is to introduce bacteria-carrying mosquitoes to stop the spread of dengue.
Dementia patients are “rallying” just before death. Scientists want to know why.
New research into terminal lucidity could revolutionize our understanding of dementia — and maybe even give us a way to reverse it.
Dignity therapy: Making the last words count
Guided conversations with the terminally ill are popular with patients, families and doctors. But are they truly beneficial?
Alzheimer’s disease: an illness that needs a long overdue cocktail
Scientists are starting to agree that the “holy grail” solution for Alzheimer’s is more likely to be a drug cocktail than a single treatment.
Stanford researchers have engineered an organism to fight cancer
A team of Stanford and MIT researchers have engineered bacteria to create a topical tumor treatment and preventative effective in mice.
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.
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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.