Toggle light / dark theme

Pensions time-bomb for world’s biggest economies could explode to $400 trillion, says WEF

Future generations are on course to become enveloped in the biggest pension crisis in history, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), unless policymakers from the world’s leading economies take urgent action.

The Geneva-based organization predicted the challenges of an ageing population could result in the world’s largest economies being forced to tackle a pension time-bomb.

Analysis from WEF showed six countries with the biggest pensions, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Netherlands, Japan and Australia, as well as the two most densely populated countries in the world – China and India – would face a retirement savings gap in excess of $400 trillion in 2050, up from around $70 trillion in 2015.

Treating Diseases with a Protein Missile System

A novel way to target proteins in cells could lead to undruggable diseases being treatable.


Researchers at the university of Dundee have shown that it is possible to target and destroy specific proteins within cells using a new directed protein missile system. This is very interesting as it raises the possibility of targeting aberrant proteins present in diseases that currently have no drug that affects them.

This opens the door to treating a range of diseases as well as potentially being useful in directly targeting proteins involved in the aging process. Before we take a look at the research let’s recap on why proteins are important, what they do and how they relate to aging and diseases.

So what are proteins?

Proteins are often called the building blocks of life and they are critical to the operation of our cells and therefore to our lives. Proteins are produced by the cell and perform a huge variety of functions such as, activating the immune response against pathogens, regulating metabolism and cellular functions. They do the majority of the work in cells and are required for maintaining the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs.

Update bundle #4

News from the world of rejuvenation biotechs.


Gone are—for now—the golden days when I would publish a new post each week. So, for as long as my schedule is going to be this busy, I’ll have to be content with update bundles. I thought I’d let you know about a few news items and interesting things going on in anti-ageing community.

On June 30 LEAF will host their first Journal Club event, with dr Oliver Medvedik. The topic will be the implications of epigenetic alterations on aging and as a primary aging process.

The recurring crowdfunding campaign to support LEAF has reached $1110, thus surpassing the first goal of $1000. The next one is $2000, and it’d be great if you could help us reach it, and advertise the campaign so that others may help too.

I gave the Co-Closing Keynote speech at San Francisco’s The Battery the other day to ultra high net worth families and their finance managers

My topic was #transhumanism and life extension. I’m hoping they might invest in these fields. Former Keynote speakers of this event include Newt Gingrich, Peter Thiel, Andre Agassi, etc. I’ll share a recording of it when I get one. http://familyofficeassociation.com/

Zoltan Istvan: How the Immortality Bus Changed Transhumanism Forever

In early 2015, when transhumanist US Presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan announced he would transform a 38-foot bus into a giant coffin and drive it across America to deliver a Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol, many in the transhumanism community reacted with contempt and ridicule. Two years later, the Immortality Bus–created as a provocative symbol of resistance against death–has become one of the most recognized futurist projects in the world. The New York Times called the bus “the great brown sarcaphogus of the American highway…a metaphor of life itself.”

Today feature films, documentaries, and even a likely final home in a major museum are being worked on for the Immortality Bus. Hear Zoltan Istvan describe his captaining of the “coffin bus”, and learn what really happened during this historic journey.

This talk was filmed for the purposes of News2Share Editor-in-chief Ford Fischer’s new documentary film, Transhuman.

Filmed by ford fischer and alejandro alvarez. edited by ford fischer

Please contact Ford Fischer at [email protected] or call (573) 575-NEWS to license video. Photos and additional footage may be available upon request.

Support News2Share on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FordFischer

I don’t want to live forever

A very simple reason why whether or not people want to live ‘forever’ doesn’t matter in the discussion about rejuvenation biotechnologies, plus a couple of thought experiments to better understand the wish to ‘die at some point’ of some.


You don’t want to live forever? Then don’t.

I’m not kidding. It is as simple as that, and I’ll tell you more. If you—or even the entire world, for that matter—don’t want to live forever, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t develop rejuvenation therapies.

Why? Because rejuvenation therapies do not make you immortal. Being forever young only means you don’t get age-related diseases and disabilities, not that you can’t be shot or run over by a truck, or that you can’t kill yourself. On top of that, you don’t have to undergo rejuvenation therapies if you don’t want to. However, while rejuvenation wouldn’t make you immortal, it would give you more control over you life. If you say you know for a fact you want to die at some point, I’m cool with that, but there is no guarantee ageing will kill you just at the right moment. Ageing could easily take you away when you still had tons of things you wanted to do. On the other hand, if you didn’t have to worry about the possibility of such an untimely death, you could very well decide for yourself when and how you want to go, and be relatively sure it’d happen that way.

Moogfest Day Three Highlights: Robot Car, Immortality Bus & Particle Physics

Here’s a write-up of Moogfest that has a section dedicated to the Immortality Bus and transhumanism:


The ExitEvent team is all hands on deck for the next four days as we try to capture all the cool stuff going on in downtown Durham for Moogfest. We’ll post photos, videos, stories and soundbites as we get them. Feel free to submit your own captures as well!

Thanks for following along!

(photo above, credit to Moogfest)