Over the previous 12 months, Jim O’Neill has change into one of the vital 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 businesses. 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 by means of longevity-focused analysis supported by ARPA-H, a federal company devoted to biomedical breakthroughs. Fellow longevity lovers stated they hope he’ll deliver consideration and funding to their trigger.
On the identical time, O’Neill defended lowering the variety of broadly really useful childhood vaccines, a transfer that has been broadly criticized by consultants in drugs and public well being. Learn the complete 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—stated a couple of years in the past. You give you a inventive angle, put collectively a workforce of specialists, work out beat the technological challenges, rehearse, transfer with Swiss-watch precision, and—should you 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 infrequently 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 complete story.
—Adam Rogers
