Sophisticated Relationships

I hope you are all having a fantastic summer.  A friend just forwarded this free event (see below) next Friday at UCLA. There will be a number of good speakers and very forward-thinking attendees there, so if you can make it, please do (I will be out of town unfortunately).  If you go, I would love to read your comments about your experience at the conference and how what the speakers talked about will impact your life.

On Friday June 27th at UCLA, the Methuselah Foundation is hosting Aging: The Disease, The Cure, The Implications, a panel discussion featuring leading scientists and advocates of stem cell and regenerative medicine research, including Dr. Aubrey de Grey, the Foundation’s Chairman and Chief Science Officer. 

Panelists will discuss the scientific progress and implications of eliminating age-related disease and disability, as well as public policy as it pertains to relevant scientific research legislation, including the passing of Prop 71 that led to establishing the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and allocating $3 billion over 10 years to fund stem cell research.

Aging 2008 is free, with advance registration required at http://www.mfoundation.org/Aging2008/.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, chairman and chief science officer of the Methuselah Foundation, said “Our organization has raised over $10 million to crack open the logjams in longevity science. With the two-armed strategy of direct investments into key research projects, and a competitive prize to spur on scientists racing to break rejuvenation and longevity records in lab mice, the Foundation is actively accelerating the drive toward a future free of age-related degeneration.” The Methuselah Foundation has been covered by 60 Minutes, Popular Science, The Wall Street Journal, and other top-flight media outlets.

The speakers at Aging 2008 will argue that the near-term consequences of intense research into regenerative medicine could be the development of therapies that extend healthy human life by decades, even if the therapies are applied in middle age.  Peter Thiel, president of Clarium Capital, initial investor in Facebook, and lead sponsor of Aging 2008, said, “The time has come to challenge the inevitability of aging. This forum will provide an excellent opportunity to look at the scientific barriers that must be over-come to substantially extend healthy human life, as well as the ethical implications of doing so.”

Admission to Aging 2008 is free, with advance registration required at www.mfoundation.org/aging2008.

WHEN:   
Friday, June 27, 2008 
Complimentary Reception – 4:00pm
Panel Discussion  – 5:00pm
Dinner w/ Speakers – 8:00pm  

WHERE:  
Royce Hall, 340 Royce Dr., UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

WHO:  
Presented by the Methuselah Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to extending the healthy human lifespan. Founded in 2002 by entrepreneur David Gobel and biogerontologist Dr. Aubrey de Grey, the Methuselah Foundation funds two major programs: the Mprize, a multimillion dollar research prize, and SENS, a detailed engineering plan to repair aging-related damage.  For more information, visit www.mfoundation.org.  

SPEAKERS:
 * Dr. Aubrey de Grey – Chairman and Chief Science Officer, Methuselah Foundation
 * Dr. Bruce Ames – Professor of Biochemistry, UC Berkeley
 * Dr. William Haseltine – Chairman, Haseltine Global Health
 * Daniel Perry – Executive Director, Alliance for Aging Research
 * Bernard Siegel – Executive Director, Genetics Policy Institute
 * Dr. Gregory Stock – Director, UCLA Program on Medicine, Technology and Society
 * Dr. Michael West – Founder, Geron and Advanced Cell Technology 

See Dr. de Grey’s speech at the TED conference.

See a lecture from Dr. Ames and the Stein Institute.

See Dr. Haseltine in a guest appearance on Charlie Rose, minute starting at 35.24

Tags: Lexi, TED, announcement by Lexi
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Jon Graves loves Improv, storytelling and facing any challenge life throws his way. He has a B.S. in Computer science with a minor in Math from Houghton College. As an attractive, charming, and eligible bachelor, he might remind you a little bit of what you’d get if you combined James Bond, Brad Pitt, and Dane Cook. Oh, and his lawyers said that we should warn you to not try that at home. (Lawyers just don’t know how to have fun!)

Jon lives in Philadelphia where he creates software products that change lives for the better. In this case, it is for a company that provides software to help consumers organize their financial lives. He is an avid people watcher and armchair psychologist, who studies human behavior patterns in order to improve himself, design user friendly software, and help people. On his nights off, you might find him drinking beer, playing casual sports, or talking to cute girls, and on rare occasions a combination of all three.

His bio may be found on the about our contributers page .

Tags: Guest, announcement by Lexi
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We’re changing things up here at Sophisticated Relationships. Both myself and Lexi are very busy this summer, and in order to keep this FUN and to practice good self care we will scale our posts back to every other week. So for now, you will see our posts every Wednesday. I will post this week and Lexi will post next week, etc.

We would really love to get some more guest writers. If you are interested, please make a submission for a topic idea. You can write to either Lexi-at-SophisticatedRelationships-dot-com or Lighthouse-at-SophisticatedRelationships-dot-com.

Tags: Lexi, Lighthouse, announcement by Lighthouse
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This weekend was busy for us at Sophisticated Relationships. Rather than posting this week, Lighthouse and I have another wonderful guest post for you on Wednesday, this one from J.M. Cornwell.

Guest Writer

J. M. Cornwell is a nationally syndicated freelance journalist, editor and award winning writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Columbus Dispatch, and New Woman. Her stories have been published in the Chicken Soup and Cup of Comfort anthologies, eight of which will be published in 2008. Ms. Cornwell lives in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and maintains a blog. She can be contacted at fixnwrtr [at]gmail [dot] com.

BIL Conference

Lighthouse was at day one of the Bil Conference and returned to Los Angeles to participate in the marathon with her sister.

I (Lexi) was at the Bil Conference for the weekend, giving a talk with Jonathan on the four principles we believe are imperative to keep in mind when meeting people.

Robert Scoble made a video of that talk and posted it here with his awesome cell phone to video technology. The slides are here as a power point, originally made in Keynote by Matt Knopp. We hope to get our own copy of the talk posted soon.

One of the many things that makes Bil work, is that everyone I met seems like sincere, curious and helpful people with follow through. That’s a lot of people with those traits in one place. Think about it: it is a conference with no organizer, and any one of the attendees was able to figure out their part in making it happen.

We had streaming video thanks to Paul in conjunction with One Click Webcasting. We have many Saturday talks available to the web thanks to Robert Scoble at Fast Company. Our speakers had help with sound thanks to Adrian Cockroft, we had projectors and a huge screen thanks to R.K. at Qtask. Food and a Saturday post talk gathering at a local pub courtesy of Joyent. Many of our power cords that enabled all of the attendees to fuel their electronics were available from Elliott Ng and Social Media Club and Meraki helped provide wifi. Our other sponsors included Creative Spaces and The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (who donated the first monies needed for space rental).

And then there were the speakers, and everyone that I saw has something relevant and important to share with the group, and were approachable after their talks. The attendees between talks, or at breaks, at dinner or the bar were also easy to talk with. I had several wonderful and interesting conversations, where the sincerity of whom I was interacting with really shown through.

For example, although Razib at GNXP is passionate about genetics, we had a great time talking about some of the cultural differences between Monterey, Bangladesh and Atlanta Georgia. Marek from Naviscribe is a scientist and businessman, yet our communication was about our philosophies of life, the balance and acceptance of grief and joy, and the various framing of perception that takes place amongst all humans on a day to day basis. I met too many wonderful people to name all of them, and reconnected with others whom I don’t see that often due to distance.

There were many good talks as well. My favorites include:

1. Aubrey de Grey: How to Be a Successful Heretic

2. Chris Heuer: Transforming the heart of Business Love & Work

3. KV Fitzpatrick: KV Fitz – Gifted Education

4. A Pagidas: Dare to be Wise! – Reclaiming Philosophy from the Anatomists of Thought

There were also many talks that I missed, and hope to find online later. Fortunately, there is a place collecting BIL mentions.

BIL was a successful example of what can happen when you bring curious, competent people with decentralized organization. I look forward to next year, reconnecting with BILders and learning more from the speakers!

If you were at BIL, I want to know, what were some of your favorite parts? What was helpful for you in approaching and connecting with other people?

With Love and Respect,

Lexi &

Tags: BIL, Guest, Lexi, Lighthouse, announcement, communication by Lexi
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