The Download: “reprogramming” aging, and the hidden sense of interoception

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This is today’s edition of The Download , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Earlier this week, Life Biosciences, a biotech company focused on reversing age-related diseases, announced that it had dosed its first volunteer. A person with glaucoma has had an experimental treatment injected straight into their eyeball.

The idea is to treat the disease by regenerating healthy nerves in the eye—but the company already hopes to go further. If the treatment can reverse glaucoma, similar treatments could reverse other diseases of aging. Maybe, just maybe, they could reverse aging altogether.

The approach relies on “reprogramming” cells to a younger state. It’s one of many strategies being explored by biotech companies looking to slow and reverse aging. But of all of them, it seems to be the one that is truly taking off.

Read the full story on the pursuit of reprogramming for rejuvenation .

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things biotech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

Scientists have a word for how we sense ourselves from the inside: interoception. Today, thanks to a 2021 Nobel Prize and new tools that can map internal signaling across the body, research into interoception is taking off.

As researchers decode how signals move between body and brain, a clearer picture is starting to take shape—with implications for how we understand and treat conditions from obesity to chronic pain to anxiety.

Find out how it’s leading to a “new continent of awareness.”

This story is part of MIT Technology Review Explains, our series untangling the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here .

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 SpaceX has officially delivered the largest IPO in history It’s raised a record $75 billion at a $1.77 trillion valuation. ( Axios ) + Making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire (on paper). ( Reuters $) + The IPO will now put his “extreme ownership” to the test. ( Wired $) + While China attempts to build a Starlink rival. ( Rest of World ) + And other challenges to SpaceX emerge. ( MIT Technology Review )