Over the previous yr, Jim O’Neill has develop into some of the highly effective individuals in public well being. Because the US deputy well being secretary, he holds two roles on the prime of the nation’s federal well being and science companies. He oversees a division with a price range 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 Expertise Overview earlier this month, O’Neill described his plans to extend human healthspan by means of longevity-focused analysis supported by ARPA-H, a federal company devoted to biomedical breakthroughs. Fellow longevity fanatics 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 drugs and public well being. Learn the total story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
The parable of the high-tech heist
Making a film is so much like pulling off a heist. That’s what Steven Soderbergh—director of the Ocean’s franchise, amongst different heist-y classics—mentioned a number of years in the past. You provide you with a inventive angle, put collectively a staff of specialists, determine easy methods to beat the technological challenges, rehearse, transfer with Swiss-watch precision, and—when you do it proper—redistribute some wealth.
However conversely, pulling off a heist isn’t very like the films. Surveillance cameras, computer-controlled alarms, knockout gasoline, and lasers infrequently function in big-ticket crime. In actuality, technical countermeasures are hardly ever an issue, and high-tech devices are hardly ever an answer. Learn the total story.
—Adam Rogers