 The longevity prize has officially launched. This crowdfunded prize, or more accurately, a series of prizes, seeks to accelerate progress in longevity research through financial incentives for proposals, experiments, and collaborations. We'll tell you who is behind this, how you can get involved, and even some of the simple steps that you could take to possibly be awarded some of the prize money in this episode of Lifespan News. The longevity prize is a new, largely decentralized take on scientific prizes. It brings together elements of crowd sourcing and crowdfunding to enable the community to help guide the prize. Made possible by Vida Dao, the Forsyte Institute, the Methuselah Foundation, and Lifespan.io, the longevity prize was inspired in part by the Methuselah Mouse Prize, which launched in 2003 with the goal of stimulating advancements in new life extension therapies. The Methuselah Mouse Prize was often compared to, and won the support of, XPRIZE, which leverages the power of competition to catalyze innovation and accelerate a more hopeful future by incentivizing radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. XPRIZE itself was inspired by another prize, the Ortig Prize, which was won way back in 1927 by Charles Lindbergh when he flew non-stop from New York City to Paris. This new prize seeks to build on the success of previous prizes, increasing engagement in longevity science, and spurring more investment than the prize is actually worth. The prize officially kicked off with a virtual opening ceremony on August 2nd, which featured numerous well-known names in longevity, sharing their ideas for future awards, and how we collectively can maximize the positive impact of these initiatives. While the official launch was recent, the prize has been in development for a while. It received $180,000 in funding from donors, including matching donors such as Vitalik Buterin, during Gitcoin Grants Round 12 in December of 2021. We made a video on this at the time, which you can find linked in the YouTube description. In addition to being funded by the community, prizes can be created by it as well. Ideas for prizes are shared in many different ways, including in the VitaDao Discord server, in a collaborative Google Doc, and during in-person events such as one that the Foresight Institute organized in San Francisco in May, and another during less-deaths longevity summer camp, which we covered in our previous video. Among the ideas for future prizes are a longevity biomarker database prize, a prize for resolving scientific controversies, and a prize focused on reproductive aging. These are still being discussed, and you can share your thoughts or put forward your own ideas through the links in the video description. The initial prize that is currently underway is the Hypothesis Prize, which is awarding $20,000 in addition to smaller amounts for other winners for ideas about promising but underappreciated areas of longevity science that should be pursued. The organizers point out that there are decades of scientific work, including work in foreign languages, that is often overlooked and ignored, and that this trove of information can be mined for actionable insights that can be applied to longevity science today. They mention the specific example of Heterocronic Parabiosis, which was experimented with well over a century ago, and is now a popular area of rejuvenation research. The longevity prize is actively seeking submissions, and the application process is extremely simple. Anyone can submit, and all you need to do is craft 1-3 pages worth of text explaining the area of study that you think is undervalued, generate a hypothesis for making progress, and propose an experiment to further investigate this approach. Submissions will be reviewed by a team of judges and may be eligible for follow-on funding or additional community support. Applications for the first round of prizes close at the end of 2022, so get started now and let's work together to advance longevity science for the benefit of everyone. Learn more, submit, or donate at LongevityPrize.com, and subscribe to LikeSpan News so that we can keep you updated. I'm Ryan O'Shea, and we'll see you in the next episode.