Josh Mitteldorf

Josh Mitteldorf studies evolutionary theory of aging using computer simulations. The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. It may be that therapies to slow the progress of aging need not repair or regenerate anything, but only need to interfere with an existing program of self-destruction. Mitteldorf has taught a weekly yoga class for thirty years. He is an advocate for vigorous self care, including exercise, meditation and caloric restriction. After earning a PhD in astrophysicist, Mitteldorf moved to evolutionary biology as a primary field in 1996. He has taught at Harvard, Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, LaSalle and Temple University. He is presently affiliated with MIT as a visiting scholar. In private life, Mitteldorf is an advocate for election integrity as well as public health. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. His two daughters are among the first children adopted from China in the mid-1980s. Much to the surprise of evolutionary biologists, genetic experiments indicate that aging has been selected as an adaptation for its own sake. This poses a conundrum: the impact of aging on individual fitness is wholly negative, so aging must be regarded as a kind of evolutionary altruism. Unlike other forms of evolutionary altruism, aging offers benefits to the community that are weak, and not well focussed on near kin of the altruist. This makes the mechanism challenging to understand and to model. more at http://mathforum.org/~josh

IF, AND, NOT

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Future pundits warn us that the Artificial Intelligence revolution could get out of our hands, as robots develop minds of their own and evade human control. Meanwhile, I’m sure you’ve noticed that user interfaces on every web site you’ve loaded in the last few years is buggy, quirky, and makes stupid mistakes, mistakes that are … Read more

Schrödinger’s Cat and the Secret of Life

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Irwin Schrödinger described his Cat Paradox in 1935. You’ve heard the gist described in many ways. In quantum mechanics, if something is possible and something else is possible, it is always possible for the something and something else to exist in superposition. An object can be in two places at once. A proton can be spinning clockwise … Read more

mRNA Vaccines: A Flawed Idea from the Start

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The mRNA vaccines for COVID are doubly flawed. One problem in particular must have been known to the biochemists and the other to the leadership who choose to rely on these vaccines. The first problem is that the dose is uncontrolled; different people produce vastly different amounts of the spike protein from the same injection. … Read more

Proof we are not living in a simulation

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If quantum biology is a thing, reality “computes” more efficiently than any computer. Introduction To some of us it is obvious, something we know in our hearts beyond doubt. There is nothing more real to me than my own consciousness. It is an example of what Immanuel Kant called a synthetic a priori. We may not … Read more

The Zeroth Law of Science

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It’s not that old. It was only about 150 years ago that scientists adopted the hypothesis that: Nature obeys fixed laws, exactly, no exceptions, and the laws are the same everywhere and for all time. Within a few decades, this went from a bold land grab* by the scientists, to a litmus test for whether … Read more

Truth of The Times

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Book review: The Gray Lady Winked, by Ashley Rindsberg, Midnight Oil Publishers (May 3, 2021),‎ 284 pages, ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1736703304 In the midst of the greatest mass deception that the world has ever known, led by Western liberal media with the New York Times at the head of the mob, comes a book that chronicles … Read more

Orwellian Science

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It was January, 2020, the very beginning of COVID, when news articles began appearing that connected the genetics of the virus with gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. These speculations were put to rest by an authoritative statement in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine, echoed by a summary in Science and an unusual … Read more

LENR—leads, links, and loose ends

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Summary: Cold Fusion is a topic with which I have some firsthand experience. I have good reason to believe that a technology that could provide abundant, cheap, clean energy to all the world is being suppressed. Beyond this, I have read enticing accounts of advanced technology, all of which seem worthy of further investigation, none of … Read more

Where is memory stored?

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Learning is a function of the brain. Memory is stored in synapses, the connections between neurons. They become stronger each time a connection takes place. “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” This theory was put forward by Donald Hebb in 1949, and it is, at best, one small part of the story. It may be completely false. I will … Read more

The Boy who is Still Crying Wolf 37 Years On

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(Listen to the author read this article) Last spring, I reviewed a book about the pharmaceutical industry’s rise to dominate the universe of medical research at major universities, medical journal gatekeepers, and press coverage of medical science in the popular media. It was the brainchild of the Sackler family, planned and executed over decades. The … Read more