7/21/22: Issue #10

Issue #10

July 21, 2022

July 21, 2022 | Issue #10

Good evening. 

Welcome to the 58 new subscribers who have joined spannr since our last issue. We’re glad to have you in the family!

In this week's newsletter:

💡 Moonshot ideas

🎧 Longevity-focused podcasts

🚨 An alarming Alzheimer’s investigation

💰 Funding announcements

Have a Moonshot Idea For Longevity? Here’s How You Could Win $20,000

Although 2022 has been a record-breaking year for longevity funding, with billions of dollars already pouring in, much of the funding has been relegated to a small, select group of companies.These companies can potentially change the longevity landscape as we know it. However, there is always a risk of too much concentration on too few ideas.If we are to solve aging-related diseases, it is important to research novel and undervalued ideas. In other words, it's going to require a more shots-on-goal approach.That’s why The Longevity Prize was created, a new initiative by VitaDAO to fund compelling but underfunded longevity ideas. After officially launching on July 12, The Longevity Prize just released its first competition this week – The Hypothesis Prize – with $20,000 up for grabs.To learn more, all the details you need to know can be found here.

The Voices Of Longevity

As longevity biotech evolves, unforeseen health trends and narratives will arise. Lifestyles will change. And industry barriers will be broken.Despite the excitement, however, there is one problem – it’s fairly confusing.Like any disruptive market, when it comes to geroscience and the methods behind human life extension, the learning curve is steep and complex. Furthermore, conceptualizing the long list of social, economic, and medical impacts is no easy task.But that doesn’t mean we should stop learning about it. Nor does it mean that there’s nowhere for us to turn for greater insight and information. To better understand longevity, the exciting scientific developments behind aging, and the latest life-spanning trends or hot topics, jumping into the world of podcasts is a great place to start.To help get you tuned in, here are some of the best longevity podcasts the community has to offer. 

Breaking News: Hours ago, Charles Piller, an investigative reporter from Science Magazine, dropped a bombshell report on a potential research scandal revolving around a key theory of Alzheimer's Disease.While there's still a lot to digest, the gist is that Neuroscientist, Matthew Schrag, found suspect images in dozens of highly influential papers involving Alzheimer’s. Experts fear this has led to boatloads of dollars in wasted NIH funding and the misdirection of the entire research community for decades.As we recently discussed, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) spends more than 60% of its annual budget on Alzheimer's. If this story holds true, a significant amount of funding has been wasted that could have gone to better aging-related research.As the story continues to develop, here are some other good reads circling around the web. 👇👇

  • Can a ‘Magic’ Protein Slow the Aging Process? (New York Times)

  • The Ethics of Life Extension (Dima Syrotkin)

  • Longevity & Functional Health: The Future of Health is Already Here (Maud Pasturaud)

  • Reproductive Longevity (Prime Movers Lab)

  • Longevity & Aging Should Be Part Of Every Companies’ People Strategy Says Organizational Expert (Forbes)