So I just published the Longevity FAQ. This represents my first blogging foray into molecular biology. So it happens, I hadn't really studied biology since high school, so here's how -and why- I went from zero to writing a FAQ on a complex topic.
Why write about it, in the first place? An original motivation is that I've said a bunch of times that I see more progress in the future coming from the life sciences rather than physics, yet my knowledge in biology was very, very lacking, not having ever seriously…
NOTE: This was written in 2020, and if I were to write it again I would probably do differently, add more structure, add some more sections. I also don't have that much time to update this FAQ, so there are other papers worth checking out written post-2020 that will not be here.
Inasmuch as one enjoys being alive, waiting longer until the signs of frailty and old age occur seems an appealing proposition, and so there is an entire field of research dedicated to understand the aging process. A recent summary …
For the first time ever, the US government, through the NOAA will be funding geoengineering research
A few very interesting adversarial collaborations posted at SSC
When does abortion become wrong?
Is eating meat a net harm? (Note that a few of the things mentioned there do not apply to countries other than the US. e.g. gestation crates are banned in the UK, so are battery cages for chicken)
The Heckman curve is shown not to be true once again. Those cost/benefit ratios look off to me though. Can those in…
Ten common statistical mistakes to watch out for when writing or reviewing a manuscript (Or when writing Nintil posts)
The history of the structure of science funding in the US
Innovation Growth Lab, a collection of RCTs on what works in science policy
The benefits of allowing grant program management (extend, stop, modify grants as they go) vs the academic system where grants are usually more hands-off.
China keeps making progress in quantum communications
SENS's spinoff Oisin extends life in mice by 20% (…
Antioxidants are widely to be held either good or non-effective. But in some cases they can be bad, in particular promote cancer (in mice)
What do we know about R&D spillovers and productivity?
From a public policy perspective, our findings indicate that the case for public support for R&D investment (input subsidies) may not be as strong as has been assumed so far. We have established empirically that the direct productivity effect of own R&D is comparable to and usually larger than that of sp…
Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison wrote two months ago a piece in The Atlantic calling for a new discipline, Progress Studies that would be very much applied and focused on improving the human condition. In my previous links post I linked to no less than eight manifestos or responses of some kind that were published some time after the original article, all show some degree of approval of this new proposal.
In contrast, Twitter was a snakepit of snide and snark for a few days, with - what seems - mostly anth…