David Hume was an 18th century Scottish philosopher who was best known for his skepticism and empiricism — using experience and observation to inform philosophy. Over the past week 2 ideas have stuck out to me in his body of work : his thoughts on motivation and response to the…

One of the most profound thinkers of the last 2 centuries — Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential philosophers of the last 200 centuries. His work investigates many aspects of the human condition — our motivations, thought processes, and goals. In an effort to understand and synthesize Nietzsche’s philosophy, I wanted to find 3 actionable takeaways one could deduce from…

Analyzing Sirtuins Impact on the Epigenome and Activation Pathways — My younger brother just finished the second book in the Harry Potter series. As some of you may remember (spoiler alert), the book spectacularly ends with Harry destroying the diary of Voldemort in the Chamber of Secrets. Inside the diary was a piece of Voldemorts soul — a “Horcrux” in…

Examining the Value Chain of Plastic — Over 8 million metric tons of plastic are leaked into the ocean every year [Geyer]. That is equivalent to a garbage truck full of plastic being dumped into the ocean every minute. Projections estimate that plastic will outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050[WE Forum]. Why is this happening? How…

There are a number of theories that delve into the question — why do we age? Among the most popular theories is the stem cell theory of aging. The Stem Cell Theory of Aging argues that as we age our stem cells lose the ability to replenish and maintain tissues…

Nir Barzilai and the TAME study that has major implications for longevity — The key to longevity is balance. After reading the paper Hallmarks of Aging, which I would say is the hallmark paper of longevity, that was my main takeaway. For the majority of the therapies, whether it came down to stem cell repletion, senescent cell eradication, or inhibition of mTOR, the…

Last week I attended a conference called Longevity2020 where some of the top researchers and entrepreneurs gave talks on their latest pieces of work. One talk however, stood out to me for how “against the grain” its topic was. The talk was given by Reason (yes that is his name)…