Over the previous yr, Jim O’Neill has turn out to be some of the highly effective folks 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 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 Expertise Assessment earlier this month, O’Neill described his plans to extend human healthspan via longevity-focused analysis supported by ARPA-H, a federal company devoted to biomedical breakthroughs. Fellow longevity fans stated they hope he’ll carry consideration and funding to their trigger.
On the identical time, O’Neill defended lowering the variety of broadly advisable childhood vaccines, a transfer that has been broadly 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—stated just a few years in the past. You give you a inventive angle, put collectively a staff of specialists, work out methods to 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 like the films. Surveillance cameras, computer-controlled alarms, knockout gasoline, and lasers hardly characteristic 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
