More than anything, Peter Thiel, the billionaire technology investor and Donald Trump supporter, wants to find a way to escape death. He's channeled millions of dollars into startups working on anti-aging medicine, spends considerable time and money researching therapies for his personal use, and believes society ought to open its mind to life-extension methods that sound weird or unsavory.

Speaking of weird and unsavory, if there's one thing that really excites Thiel, it's the prospect of having younger people's blood transfused into his own veins.

That practice is known as parabiosis, and, according to Thiel, it's a potential biological Fountain of Youth–the closest thing science has discovered to an anti-aging panacea. Research into parabiosis began in the 1950s with crude experiments that involved cutting rats open and stitching their circulatory systems together. After decades languishing on the fringes, it's recently started getting attention from mainstream researchers, with multiple clinical trials underway in humans in the U.S. and even more advanced studies in China and Korea.

Considering the science-fiction promise of parabiosis, the studies have received notably little fanfare. But Thiel has been watching closely.

Thiel and Ambrosia.

In Monterey, California, about 120 miles from San Francisco, a company called Ambrosia recently commenced one of the trials. Titled "Young Donor Plasma Transfusion and Age-Related Biomarkers," it has a simple protocol: Healthy participants aged 35 and older get a transfusion of blood plasma from donors under 25, and researchers monitor their blood over the next two years for molecular indicators of health and aging. The study is patient-funded; participants, who range in age from late 30s through 80s, must pay $8,000 to take part, and live in or travel to Monterey for treatments and follow-up assessments.

Ambrosia's founder, the Stanford-trained physician Jesse Karmazin, has been studying aging for more than a decade. He became interested in launching a company around parabiosis after seeing impressive data from animals and studies conducted abroad in humans: In one trial after another, subjects experience a reversal of aging symptoms across every major organ system. While the mechanisms at play aren't totally understood, he said, young organisms' blood not only contains all sorts of proteins that improve cell function; somehow it also prompts the recipients' body to increase its production of those proteins.

"The effects seem to be almost permanent," he says. "It's almost like there's a resetting of gene expression."

While Ambrosia advertised the study to attract participants, it didn't seek broader coverage. So Karmazin was somewhat surprised to get a message from Jason Camm, chief medical officer at Thiel Capital, who expressed interest in what the company was doing. (Karmazin said he hasn't reached out to any investors: "I'd really want to talk about what the business model would be.")

Although his LinkedIn profile identifies him as an angel investor, that's not Camm's primary job. An osteopath with a background in treating elite athletes, Camm is "Personal Health Director to Peter Thiel … and a number of other prominent Silicon Valley business leaders and investors," according to his professional profile. "He enables his clients to make radical breakthroughs in their immediate day-to-day health, cognitive functioning and physical performance – all of which increase their prospects for Optimal Health and significant Lifespan Extension." more

https://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/peter-thiel-young-blood.html

>>6295044

Over eight years, the government has deported about 34,000 people via Boeing Field. King County wants it stopped.

As University of Washington researchers prepared to release a report highlighting King County’s “collaboration” with flights deporting immigrants, county Executive Dow Constantine signed an order Tuesday that seeks – eventually – to ban such flights from using the airport he oversees.

At a news conference Tuesday at King County International Airport, commonly known as Boeing Field, county officials said they believe it is the first attempt by any jurisdiction in the country to ban flights carried out for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“We are hoping to be leading the way,” said Rachel Smith, deputy county executive and chief of staff.

Charter companies working on ICE’s behalf regularly use Boeing Field to fly immigrants to their home countries, and to bring others in from around the country for incarceration at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, according to a report by the UW Center for Human Rights.

The center obtained an ICE database showing that deportation flights from Boeing Field carried roughly 34,000 people away over the last eight years.

County officials said their announcement was not timed to the release of the report, though the news conference happened just one day before a planned event by the UW researchers where they were to explain their findings.

Neither ICE nor the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had an immediate comment on the executive order. “We do not comment on hypotheticals,” said an FAA spokesperson.

Smith said the county expects legal challenges.

When the federal government gave the land for Boeing Field to the county, it stipulated that federal aircraft be allowed to use the airport. John Parrott, the airport’s director, said the county believed the executive order would not violate the stipulation because ICE doesn’t directly operate deportation flights. Charter companies do.

The executive order directs county officials to rewrite future leases with three companies – so-called “fixed base operators” – that rent space at the airport and provide services to charter flights: for instance, refueling planes. The new contracts would prohibit those companies from servicing flights transporting immigrant detainees.

Yet the county has accepted grants that forbid it from discriminating against any aircraft, according to the FAA.

“There’s a very subtle nuance with the FAA,” Parrott said. The agency does not allow “unjust discrimination” but does allow “just discrimination,” he said, meaning that the county has to have a reason.

The executive order elaborates on the county’s reason: “Deportations raise deeply troubling human rights concerns which are inconsistent with the values of King County, including separations of families, increases of racial disproportionality in policing, deportations of people into unsafe situations in other countries, and constitutional concerns of due process.”

County officials said they did not know when current leases at the airport expire and new ones could be negotiated. In the meantime, they said, they would try to monitor ICE flights by conducting audits of the businesses involved and by putting security cameras at key spots.

“We’re gratified to see they’re taking the concerns raised by our research seriously,” said Angelina Godoy, director of the Center for Human Rights.

That research looks at the scope of operations involved in what’s known as “ICE Air.” The center wrote two reports, one analyzing national data and one related specifically to King County.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/over-eight-years-the-government-has-deported-about-34000-people-via-boeing-field-king-county-wants-it-stopped/

Both reports look at the players involved. One charter company working for ICE Air, for instance, is Arizona-based Swift Air, which on its website advertises its “premier VIP operations” and “exceptional service” to professional sports teams and Fortune 500 companies.

Swift Air did not return a phone call and email seeking comment on its ICE flights.

The UW reports also point to allegations of abuse on two ICE flights. One was a deportation flight to Somalia, during which a mechanical problem caused the plane to turn back. When the plane returned to the U.S., some passengers said they had been handcuffed and shackled for nearly 48 hours, were beaten and forced to urinate in bottles or on themselves.

“The allegations of ICE mistreatment onboard the Somali flight are categorically false,” said ICE in a statement.

The reports also say codes in the database they received indicate thousands of people have been deported despite pending appeals of deportation orders. The UW researchers relied on other analysts familiar with immigration procedures to decipher the codes.

more

>>6295273

sauce

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/over-eight-years-the-government-has-deported-about-34000-people-via-boeing-field-king-county-wants-it-stopped/