Hey Friends,
Last week I was in London for a special private event for the launch of the Foundation for Visionary Science and Art.
It was awesome.
The event had a stellar lineup of talks by psychedelic scientists from Imperial College London, Centre for Psychedelic Research, including Professor David Nutt, Dr. David Erritzoe, Sarah Reed and Chris Timmerman.
It was hosted by Deborah Frances-White, award-winning writer and comedian. She is best known for her podcast The Guilty Feminist. She is absolutely hilarious and did a fantastic job moderating and performing.
Special thanks to Alex Papenheim Adams founding this incredible initiative & for the invitation.
Overall, it was a great trip to London. I got to catch up with some of my investor and founder friends.
I’ll be back to the UK this summer to speak about Women’s Health and Psychedelics at London Tech Week and at Oxford University.
🗣️ Looking for the read-aloud version of Nina’s Notes?
💬 In this note:
🥦 Nutrition for Longevity
📚 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
⚡️ Whale Conversations
🥦 Nutrition for Longevity
The Western diet has put global health at risk.
A recent report by the World Obesity Federation’s 2023 Atlas predicts that more than half of the world’s population will be overweight or obese by 2035.
Already 80% of American adults are overweight or obese, and 93% of American adults are considered metabolically unhealthy.
Leaving only ~7% of American adults with optimal metabolic health.
The U.S. also has the lowest life expectancy among large, wealthy countries.
Our metabolism is the energy factory of our body. If not working properly, it leads to health issues, such as weight gain, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
We can take back control over our weight, metabolism and health by addressing the foods we eat and our nutrition.
To help you take control of your nutrition, I created a guidebook.
The guidebook covers the following:
Balance Blood Glucose
Eat in the Right Order
Increase Fiber
Avoid Added Sugar
Avoid Processed Foods
Four Longevity Boosting Foods
Example Menus
Proper nutrition fundamentally shapes overall health, influencing everything from mental and physical wellness and life quality.
Nutrient-rich diets support bodily functions at all levels, directly impacting energy levels, cognitive function and disease resistance.
This guide will focus on how to improve your nutrition to live a long and healthy life.
It’s free.
📚 Book of the Week
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E Schwab
★★★★★
Addie LaRue makes a deal with the devil to live forever.
But her curse has a twist. She is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
She can live forever, but never make a deep connection.
She is constantly reintroducing herself and having to start over.
I absolutely loved this book. With everything I write about longevity, this is a great read to consider what it means to live forever and the loneliness it can bring.
Pick it up as your next read.
This is the third book I’ve read by author V.E Schwab, and she continues to impress.
Vicious and A Darker Shade of Magic were in my top 5 fiction books for 2023.
All wonderful reads to add to your ‘to-read’ list.
⚡️ Check This Out
Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash
WE SPOKE TO A WHALE!
Last November a scientific team, called Whale-SETI, published a paper about having a 20 minute conversation with a whale, and…let’s just say that the internet did not make enough noise about this.
This is amazing.
Let’s go talk to the whales! Let’s learn more of the secrets of the sea!
Whale-SETI (short for Whale Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is utilizing their findings from the study of intelligent, terrestrial, non-human communication systems to develop filters that can be applied to any potential extraterrestrial signals received.
This project blends the search for extraterrestrial intelligence with marine biology, aiming to decode whale communication.
It operates under the hypothesis that whale sounds contain complex, intelligent messages akin to languages used by humans or potentially, extraterrestrial beings.
Ok, now back to the whale conversation.
Picture this.
The Whale-SETI team is out in the sea of southeastern Alaska, hanging out on their research vessel playing a broadcast of a recorded humpback whale contact call called the “whup/throp” through a speaker in the ocean.
Amazing name for a call…”whup/throp”
When all of a sudden, an adult female humpback whale named Twain approaches, circles their boat and responds to the “whup/throping” in a conversational manner.
For. 20. Minutes!
Twain matched the intervals between the whup/throps, even when the team varied the time between whup/throps.
The lead author on the paper, Dr. Brenda McCowan of U.C. Davis believes this is the first such communication exchange between humans and humpback whales in the humpback language.
So cool.
Humpback whales are notably intelligent. They engage in complex social systems, create tools - for example, nets made of bubbles to catch fish, and they extensively communicate through songs and calls.
The core of the Whale-SETI technology are sophisticated hydrophones and AI algorithms.
The AI was trained on datasets of whale calls and human language.
This method can help to break the complex code of whale language and hopefully enhance our ability to understand language development in intelligent species.
Hold on…sooo the scientists are speaking to whales with AI?
YES!
This. is. what. we. should. be. using. AI. for.
Hell yeah.
Honestly though, this is a major breakthrough.
Because I really wonder, if we ever encounter aliens, how will we be able to communicate with them when we can’t properly communicate with the animals we have here on earth?
So congrats to Whale-SETI for their communication with a humpback whale named Twain. This gives me hope that if we do ever contact aliens, we have at least a small chance of getting our message across.
Edited by Wright Time Publishing