Over the previous 12 months, Jim O’Neill has grow to be one of the highly effective individuals in public well being. Because the US deputy well being secretary, he holds two roles on the high of the nation’s federal well being and science companies. He oversees a division with a finances of over a trillion {dollars}. And he signed the choice memorandum on the US’s deeply controversial new vaccine schedule.
He’s additionally a long life fanatic. In an unique interview with MIT Know-how Overview earlier this month, O’Neill described his plans to extend human healthspan by way of longevity-focused analysis supported by ARPA-H, a federal company devoted to biomedical breakthroughs. Fellow longevity lovers mentioned they hope he’ll deliver consideration and funding to their trigger.
On the similar time, O’Neill defended decreasing the variety of broadly advisable childhood vaccines, a transfer that has been extensively criticized by consultants in medication and public well being. Learn the total story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
The parable of the high-tech heist
Making a film is quite a bit like pulling off a heist. That’s what Steven Soderbergh—director of the Ocean’s franchise, amongst different heist-y classics—mentioned a couple of years in the past. You give you a inventive angle, put collectively a workforce of specialists, work out how you can beat the technological challenges, rehearse, transfer with Swiss-watch precision, and—for those who do it proper—redistribute some wealth.
However conversely, pulling off a heist isn’t very similar to the films. Surveillance cameras, computer-controlled alarms, knockout gasoline, and lasers hardly function in big-ticket crime. In actuality, technical countermeasures are not often an issue, and high-tech devices are not often an answer. Learn the total story.
—Adam Rogers
