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A critical(!) review of Scaling People, a book by Claire Hughes Jones that I liked (ie I liked both the book and the review) though I am not as critical as the review is. CHJ 's book remains one of the best attempts at making the tacit art of management legible. What happened to the US machine tool industry? Scott Alexander: Should the future be human? Things you learn dating Cate Hall, and Cate Hall on agencymaxxing Casey Handmer on Elon Musk The promise of SGLT2 inhibitors Menopause and longevity Karuna T…

Links (75)

"The startup burnout to spirituality pipeline is strong for a reason.": A glimpse of absolute perfection Short term twin study on the impacts of a vegan diet in healthy-ish patients. Compared to control, patients in the vegan diet saw decreases in fasting insulin, weight, and LDL cholesterol FAQ on Lantern Bioworks, a biotech startup producing an oral probiotic that can prevent cavities for life Scott's Beyond Abolish the FDA proposal All the different kinds of cardiovascular disease, and how man…

Rapamycin is not an aging drug. But what is an aging drug?

The title of this post will spark some controversy. But it is, under a reasonable interpretation, not false, just spicy 🌶️. It make sense to start from the perhaps less controversial view that "rapamycin is an aging drug" and explain why that is wrong as well. My issue with those that talk about rapamycin as an "(anti)aging drug", or a "geroprotector" is that it's often unclear what of this is being said There's a unified thing called aging that affects everything that goes wro…

Some thoughts on causality in biological systems

Sometimes one reads discussions of causality in academic papers. Expressions like "this gene causes that" or "Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is caused by XYZ". Or of course, "We don't know what causes X". Recently I found myself thinking about these three statements: We don't know what causes Alzheimer's yet (eg here at NIA) Old age does not cause Alzheimer's, but it is the most important risk factor for the disease (also here at NIA) Aging causes Alzheimer's (eg here at Fightaging)…

Links (74)

Tales from the patient side of oncology clinical trials Hackernews compilation of "things that don't scale" Colonoscopies, do they work? Future House, new FRO-like organization launches to work at the intersection of AI and biotech Tattoos are made of macrophages that constantly die and are eaten by other macrophages A song: Midnight in the Desert Huh strangely not that much happened this month! This might be the shortest Links post in a while. Maybe I have been rabbitholeing less and a lot of the…

Telomeres: everything you always wanted to know

Back in 2020 when I wrote the Longevity FAQ I had a section on telomeres and some cursory examination of how much they might matter for aging. Now that I know more it's time to revisit it, including also some historical notes and some papers that came out after I wrote that FAQ. The direct reason for writing this post is that often when I say that I work on aging (at Retro Biosciences, we are hiring!) I am asked if "that's the telomeres thing". For some reason, telomeres became tied to aging broad…