US Agency Devoting $144M To Studies On Slowing Aging, Improving Quality of Life
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US Agency Devoting $144M To Studies On Slowing Aging, Improving Quality of Life (Maria)
The author writes, “Aging is the unindicted coconspirator in many of the diseases that can make our later years miserable. But not a single treatment for aging has ever been rigorously tested and approved. By doling out up to $144M in contracts last month, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the US government agency launched in 2022 to sponsor out-of-the-box biomedical science, aims to change that.”
Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate (Reader Jim)
From ProPublica: “Thousands of companies are jockeying for billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts to build a shield designed to intercept and destroy missiles launched against the United States. But amid the intense competition, a handful of firms have an important inside connection. At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded by billionaire Steve Feinberg, who until last year ran the company and is now the deputy secretary of defense — the second-highest-ranking official in the Pentagon.”
Prison Guards Discussed Cover-Up of Epstein’s Death, Inmate Tells FBI (Reader Steve)
From the Miami Herald: “An inmate housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York told the FBI he overheard guards talking about covering up Jeffrey Epstein’s death on the morning he died. The federal government’s online Epstein library contains a five-page handwritten report of an FBI interview with an inmate who awoke the morning of Aug. 10, 2019 to the loud commotion in the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, where he and Epstein were jailed. ‘Breathe! Breathe!’ he recalled officers shouting about 6:30 a.m. Then he said he heard an officer say ‘Dudes, you killed that dude.’ A female guard replied ‘If he is dead, we’re going to cover it up and he’s going to have an alibi — my officers,’ the FBI notes said. The inmate claimed the whole wing overheard the exchange.”
Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online (DonkeyHotey)
The author writes, “[The] narrative of online safety, particularly in relation to children, has become central to the bipartisan effort to censor and deanonymize the internet for everyone. Today, a package of a dozen ‘child online safety’ bills is moving forward in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. The laws, framed as a way to crack down on harmful content and make the internet safer, would force social media companies to enact invasive identity verification measures in order to keep children from accessing online spaces. The problem is that there’s no way to reliably verify someone’s age without verifying who they are. A platform cannot magically discern that a user is 16 without collecting identifying information, whether through government documents such as a passport, payment information like a credit card, or other identity-disclosing data. Whether that data is stored by the platform itself or outsourced to a vendor, the result is always the same: A user’s offline identity is forever linked with their online behavior.”
Guess What Moderate Democratic Voters Aren’t Anymore? Moderate (Dana and DonkeyHotey)
From The New Republic: “Two new polls suggest that moderate Democrats too want higher taxes on the rich and some measure of economic populism. Moderate isn’t what it was in 1992.”
‘It Just Looked Opportunistic and Sloppy’: Sam Altman Regrets Rushed Defense Deal as ChatGPT Uninstalls Surge by 295% (Sean)
The author writes, “The controversy around OpenAI’s decision to sign a defense deal with the US Department of War (DoW) continues to rumble on, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitting the agreement was ‘rushed,’ and ChatGPT uninstall rates up by some 295%. … so nearly three times as many users are taking the app off their phones compared to an average day. Many of those ChatGPT quitters seem to be heading to Claude. Sensor Tower reports installs in the US were up 37% last Friday and up 51% last Saturday, and Claude has also hit the top of the Apple App Store charts. Within the last couple of days the AI bot has also made chat memory available for all users.”
A 67-Year-Old Physics Theory Was Accidentally Confirmed, Setting the Stage for the Future of Energy (Laura)
From Daily Galaxy: “Scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have confirmed the existence of a massless particle, long theorized by physicist David Pines’ theory. This particle, known as the ‘demon,’ could hold the key to understanding an elusive concept that, if unlocked, could drastically change the way we use and transmit energy. The ‘demon’ is electrically neutral, and impossible to detect by conventional means. First proposed over six decades ago, this particle had been a theoretical curiosity for many years. But thanks to some unexpected results, this particle has now been observed in a twist of fate that could potentially redefine our understanding of superconductivity.”
