Josh Mitteldorf

Josh Mitteldorf studies evolutionary theory of aging using computer simulations. The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. It may be that therapies to slow the progress of aging need not repair or regenerate anything, but only need to interfere with an existing program of self-destruction. Mitteldorf has taught a weekly yoga class for thirty years. He is an advocate for vigorous self care, including exercise, meditation and caloric restriction. After earning a PhD in astrophysicist, Mitteldorf moved to evolutionary biology as a primary field in 1996. He has taught at Harvard, Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, LaSalle and Temple University. He is presently affiliated with MIT as a visiting scholar. In private life, Mitteldorf is an advocate for election integrity as well as public health. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. His two daughters are among the first children adopted from China in the mid-1980s. Much to the surprise of evolutionary biologists, genetic experiments indicate that aging has been selected as an adaptation for its own sake. This poses a conundrum: the impact of aging on individual fitness is wholly negative, so aging must be regarded as a kind of evolutionary altruism. Unlike other forms of evolutionary altruism, aging offers benefits to the community that are weak, and not well focussed on near kin of the altruist. This makes the mechanism challenging to understand and to model. more at http://mathforum.org/~josh

Fourier meets Heisenberg

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Fourier Math and Quantum Uncertainty I’m going to explore some delightful results from pure math, and a head-scratching way that the math appears in basic quantum physics. This may get a little math-y, but please bear with me. I’ll try to keep it (as Einstein would say) “as simple as possible, but not simpler”. Start … Read more

What happened to the data?

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Do vaccines cause more harm than good? Or is there an overwhelming net benefit? Are there some vaccines in each category? Are whole-virus vaccines better than vaccines based on a single antigen (“epitope”) isolated from the virus? Are vaccines more effective against viruses than bacteria, or vice versa? Do mRNA “vaccines” work at all? All these … Read more

Evidence for “Dark Energy” Challenged

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Summary   In 1997, two independent research groups published their finding that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. The concept of “dark energy” was introduced as a hypothetical source of negative gravity, which would add the acceleration to the standard Big Bang model. Subir Sarkar now claims that the two groups made the mistake … Read more

The Big Bang — a good theory while it worked

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Since 1964, the Big Bang has been the context for interpreting all of astronomy. The theory has been troubled since 1997 by observations that don’t fit the model. That was the year that accelerating expansion was documented. The most recent observation is that All of Creation is rotating. We don’t even know how to calculate … Read more

Dean Radin: The Science of Magic (book review)

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The Science of Magic, by Dean Radin, forthcoming October 21 from Random House / Harmony This is Dean Radin’s fifth book about parapsychology. They are all compellingly written. If this is the first time you are taking the paranormal seriously, the information can be transformational. Since 2018, he has come out of the closet, openly characterizing as … Read more

Darwin, Lamarck, and McFadden

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Here are three ideas of how evolution works, which I’ll refer to as Darwinian, Lamarckian, and super-Lamarckian. Darwinian: Offspring are just like their parents except for mistakes and DNA copying errors — mutations that are completely random, caused, for example, by stray cosmic rays. All the functionality that evolves is due to natural selection — i.e., … Read more

What do THEY know that We don’t?

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In 1951, the act authorizing the CIA was amended with the provision that the CIA and DoD might conduct secret research without revealing their scientific progress to the public or even to Congress. 74 years later, what do they know that university scientists don’t know? And what technologies do they have that are not in the … Read more