Spark 431

The immortality industry: a look at 'extreme fasting' and 'radical life extension' trends

Arwa Mahdawi sheds light on how tech bros in Silicon Valley are rebranding eating disorder-like behavior as "extreme fasting." James Strole, Director of the Coalition for Radical Life Extension has dedicated his life to agelessness. And, James Horton, a PhD candidate working in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Bath, speaks to the darker side of Silicon Valley's quest for immortality.

'Tech for seniors' assumes seniors are a monolithic group. They're not

A wide range of people -- and ages -- are lumped in together under the "senior" umbrella. How can we design tech for such a large group with a massive disparity in digital knowledge and experience. Thinking about seniors as people, for starters. Ian Hosking is a researcher in technology design for the elderly at the University of Cambridge.

Google's new streaming service aims to be Netflix for gaming

On Tuesday, Google announced they would be launching Stadia, a platform to stream video games through the Chrome browser. But Georgia Tech professor and independent video game designer, Ian Bogost, says there are a lot of hurdles to overcome before a seamless experience will be possible.

Your genome could help medical research. It could also be a privacy nightmare

More than 26 million people have already had home DNA tests, from companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA. As the databases of people's genomes grows, who should own that data? Who can make use of it for research into precision medicine, or to study how to more effectively target drugs? Catalina Lopez-Correa, is Chief Scientific Officer at Genome BC, a not-for-profit focused on advancing genome research. She reflects on how we can harness the potential of genomics for research, while protecting individual privacy.