Goes to Henry Markam of the super neat Blue Brain project. This is great and definitely worth the few minutes it takes to watch it:
See also: Blue Brain Exposed
10/17/2008
Coolest presentation of the year nomination
Want to turn that frown upside down?
Want to ignore the crazy markets for 30 minutes?
Check out the new H+ magazine that just came out (pdf).
The piece that I probably liked the most is on page 16/17 (or page 9 in Acrobat), by Michael Anissimov. He discusses organisms that are extraodinarly long-lived, such as hydras, planarians, and turtles (which I’ve discussed before, see also this post).
If you read Slashdot or other geeks sites, most of the other stuff is not entirely new, although it is helpful to have it all consolidated in a single publication. The Stross interview is boring (I’ve criticized his ridiculous Economics 2.0 agitprop before) and Cory Doctrow’s interview is unsurprisingly horrendous. C’mon Cory, do some home work on economics — modern day mainstream models are called neoclassical, not Keynesian.
Overall I’m still bearish on concepts like mind-uploading, especially in today’s economic climate that will surely impair research and development in those areas.
Oh, and here is some anti-aging advice that didn’t make it into newsletter: eat like a caveman, workout like a caveman, and save a shit load of money to cryonically freeze yourself… like a caveman in a glacier.