Engineering An End to Aging

Reason writes "Biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey has put forward a biological engineering plan to end human aging and co-founded the Methuselah Mouse Prize in recent years. Now he is finally getting some of the public recognition he deserves in an excellent David Stipp article at Fortune Magazine. If you ever wondered exactly how to go about engineering away the 50 million deaths due to aging that occur each and every year - and how to bring about a sea change in the scientific establishment - then this is the place to start. As an added bonus, I don't think you'll find a more succinct (and utterly British) answer to overpopulation objections to life extension than the one at the end of this article!"

some one has to say (do) it.

If i lived forever I would get board, I probably join Wowbagger The Infinitely Prolonged in insulting the universe, we could insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and in Alphabetical Order. I don't care if it is imposable I can dream can't I?

http://hhgproject.org/entries/wowbagger.html

Re:some one has to say (do) it.

If i lived forever I would get board

but would you learn to spell?

C'mon, if you gonna do it, do it right: but wood you learn to spell if you were board?

Re:some one has to say (do) it.

When someone gets up on a plank like this, it really goes against my grain. Same old saw, time after time. It lacks polish, not to mention finish. I mean, branch out a little, why don't you? If you're going to stump for puns, don't just seed one and hope someone will twig to it... get right in there and employ a little graft. Really, it's as easy as falling off a log.

In Soviet Russia, YOU are the Knothead!

Re:some one has to say (do) it.

mpost4, You are a kneebiting... oh wait, I've gotten you before.

I am just afraid...

...that we are all going to die some day.

Re:I am just afraid...

Look to the wisdom of Carl:

"Whatever, you do your thing, I'll do mine. Y'know. Whatever. You're the stupid one. Think you're gonna live forever? Nope. Someone'll kill ya. Someone'll kill ya with a knife. Sorry, that's just the way it is."

-Carl, ATHF

Re:I am just afraid...

Tyrell: What-- What seems to be the problem?

Roy: Death.

Tyrell: Death. Well, I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction, you--

Roy: I want more life, fucker.

Tyrell: The facts of life. To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.

Roy: Why not?

Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.

Roy: What about EMS recombination.

Tyrell: We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.

Roy: Then a repressive protein that blocks the operating cells.

Tyrell: Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication so that the newly formed DNA strand carries the mutation and you've got a virus again. But, uh, this-- all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.

Roy: But not to last.

Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very very brightly, Roy. Look at you. You're the prodigal son. You're quite a prize!

Off with their balls!

If people are going to stop dying they had best stop reproducing as well. There's already too many of you people breathing my air and eating my corn chips.

Re:Off with their balls!

If people are going to stop dying they had best stop reproducing as well. There's already too many of you people breathing my air and eating my corn chips.

That's the roaches and rats, dude. Time to get a maid I thinks.

This is cute, but...

As far as I know, from the Methuselah Mouse Prize, the current record holder (by a lot, mind you) has been people who have kept their mice alive the longest by keeping their mice healthy.

It's nice to think science will hold all the answers to everything, as (at least the USA) is obsessed with looking/staying young, but does anyone else see this as not realistic? Anyone else think that just staying as healthy and active as you can is the best way to go, rather than literally hoping for a miracle?

Re:This is cute, but...

"Anyone else think that just staying as healthy and active as you can is the best way to go, rather than literally hoping for a miracle?

I may get flamed for this, but I'll say it anyway...This is why obesety is a problem in the U.S. People look for that miracle drug or easy-out diet that they can just "do" and see results that will last them a lifetime. The results from such things may last their lifetime, albeit perhaps shorter that it may have been if they made a lifestyle change. Keeping healthy and fit is not something meant to be done for short spurts throughout your life where you lose weight, gain it back, lose it again, etc. like a yo-yo. The key to successfully keeping your weight under control is to make a change that you'll keep for life and not tire of in a few months/years.

Want to follow the Atkins Diet? Fine, but can you see yourself doing it for the rest of your life? If so, and it works for you, great! Stick with it! The key is sticking with something. Personally I may see people chomping on a T-Bone steak for breakfast and it makes me want to hurl, and I have a really hard time believing they'll stick with that for more than a couple years. Then again, some people with overeating issues may find the thought of never drinking sugary sodas ever again in their lives be impossible to imagine.

The thing is, if they find some miracle drug that staves off aging, it'll just make it much easier for something else to kill people off, as it'll just be another excuse for people not to want/have to keep fit and healthy. And can you imagine the costs of healthcare and food with an overpopulated world of unhealthy, overweight people?

Re:This is cute, but...

I can't believe such an intelligent audience is categorizing these things in the same group.

Here is a rebuttle from one (myself) who ardently supports what Aubrey de Grey is trying to accomplish, in reference to the likes of you "(insert label here) is waiting for a miricle drug" people:

I will simply quote George Carlin (one of his Self-Help book ideas)- "Eat right, stay fit, die anyway"

Re:This is cute, but...

Want to follow the Atkins Diet? Fine, but can you see yourself doing it for the rest of your life?

Staying on Atkins for any length of time longer than months is a Very Bad Idea. IANA nutritional scientist, but I know that when you get most of your energy form metabolizing protien, ketones build up in your bloodstream. These are very bad chemicals that do damage to organs. You want to get the bulk of your energy from complex carbohydrates. Here's the Mr. Neutron Plan for Pysical Fitness:

1. Get rid of refined simple sugars and starches. Eat reasonable amounts of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables instead.
2. Get rid of saturated fats - especially artificially hydrogenated oils, which are mucho bad for you.
3. Eat three reasonable meals a day. Find out what is reasonable for you. Eat meat, fish, and eggs (or soy if you're vegan) in decent amounts. You need these to keep muscle tissue.
4. Quit snacks. Period. Learn to live on your three meals a day, with the *occasional* treat.
5. Exercise. At least 30 minutes of strenuous exercise, three times a week. By strenuous, I mean you should have enough breath to carry on a conversation, but not enough to sing. If you know how, strength train three times a week. This is especially helpful for guys, as we tend to put on muscle mass easily. More muscle mass means a higher metobolic rate (even when sitting at a desk reading /.), meaning you'll burn fat faster.

Try this for several months to a year, and see if you can reach your desired shape. If you do this for a year, and can't get where you want to be, resign yourself to the shape you have. Remember that you have done some great things for your health, and that is more important than a number on a scale. At this point, you can add the snacks back in - even the occasional sugary or fatty treat - but keep this routine going as a lifestyle. It would be very hard not to be healthy if you are eating right and exercising.

Re:This is cute, but...

Actually you get most of your energy from metabolizing fat when you're on Atkins, but never mind that.

Ok, so it's the fat metabolism that does it... (like I said, I'm not a nutritional scientist), but the point is, your body is thrown into a state of ketosis (http://atkins.com/helpatkins/newfaq/answers/Since StartingTheAtkinsProgramIHaveBadBreath.html) Ketosis is GREAT for weight-loss. You con your body into feeding off its own fat. But like I said, you don't want to be on this for the *long term*. A "low carb lifestyle" is NOT healthy.

Would you mind providing a reference for the "Ketoines cause organ damage"-claim, or would that spoil the fun?

http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId= 342&fArticleId=255925
"Ketosis happens when the body needs glucose to fuel its processes, and can't get it from its usual source - carbohydrates. The body has a back-up mechanism that turns to stored fat or protein to produce the glucose, by going into a state called ketosis.

The problem with ketosis is that its by-products are toxic to the body in excess.

Ketogenic diets have been implicated in causing not only halitosis (bad breath), but also cancer, heart disease, kidney ailments and brittle bones.

Re:no

cells that have probably lost a significant amount of their protective end-sections (IANAG--I forget what the ends of the DNA molecules are called, but they basically act as a buffer to prevent harmful mutation. Over time, though, they get shorter and disappear.)

IANAG, but I am a MD.
Those things are called telomeres, they shorten in most cells with each copying of the DNA. Except that in germ (reproductive) cells there are telomerases, which re-lenghten the telomeres.
Problem solved right, just turn on your telomerases? wrong, cancer does that....
Read more at Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

Re:no

Problem solved right, just turn on your telomerases? wrong, cancer does that....

Actually, "turning on the telomerases" is closer to a possible solution than you claim. I wish I could find the article again (if anyone else can, please post), but I can't, so here's the summary: A group of scientists took a worm and messed with its genes so that it constantly made telomerase. The worm was supposed to have a life span of 2 weeks (this was not a garden worm, but some kind of funny roundworm or something). After 1 year, it still appeared normal and healthy. It is quite possible that telomerase will do this sort of thing to other organisms too, but there are ethical questions that need to be resolved before we do testing on humans.
In response to your quip about cancer, yes, cancer cells constantly produce telomerase. This is why cancer can continue to grow and not die off (indeed, you can even get certain decades-old cancer strains in biological catalogues). However, this only keeps cancer cells from growing frail and losing important genes. The part that makes them grow and divide at a malicious rate is unrelated. This has to do with a protein called p53. p53 usually just sits around, but when a cell exhibits certain cancerous behaviors, p53 lyses (kills) it. In cancer cells, the gene that makes p53 no longer works (either it has been disabled, or it has a mutation in it that causes it to no longer make p53). This is why cancer cells are harmful - they do not stop replicating. This has almost nothing to do with telomerase. The telomerase just keeps the genes in the cancer cells (and in regular cells too) healthy. Indeed, all cells have a little telomerase in them, but not enough to completely repair the telomeres after the DNA has been copied.

Re:no

Telomers. Here [sciencemag.org] is a good article on the application of removing telomerase to extend the life of humans. Mice studies have shown that by capping the Telomers to keep them from unwinding that mice can be made which seemingly cease to age and which are almost immune to carcinogens. There have been mice that live several years whereas their untreated brethern die in weeks or months.

Re:This is cute, but...

Suppose you have a car you want to keep in good shape for the next 30 years. Obviously, you'll want to avoid driving it into ditches, keep it washed so it doesn't rust, give it the correct fuel, drive it in the correct RPM range, etc. However, you also need to do other preventative maintenance, such as changing the oil, changing the timing belt, maybe replacing the piston rings after 400,000 miles or so, etc. Basically, there are some parts of cars that eventually will wear out, like belts, hoses, and friction materials, and these need to be replaced. Just keeping the car clean and vacuumed isn't going to help when the brake pads wear out.

This guy's theory is that regular biological processes in our bodies leave behind various contaminants or whatever, and need to be cleaned out occassionally. This seems perfectly reasonable to me, but it doesn't mean you can neglect taking regular care of your body (eating right, etc.), just like replacing an engine's piston rings isn't going to help much when you tried running it without oil.

Wrong

The current record holder for the Mouse prize won by placing his mouse on a very strict diet. This isn't the South Beach Diet. The mouse was fed the minimum amount of calories to sustain it's life, and other systems that would normally fail were artifically supplemented in a way least likely to cause celluar damage.

The mouse winner played the Free Radical game. This is _NOT_ Healthy living. If you did this, you wouldn't be strong enough to walk, and barely enough to bring air into your lungs.

There are people out there that count their calories so closely they can perdict a 5yr added life bonus by decreasing the amount of waste products metabolism produces. Many are now suffering from delbitating illness like Osteoporosis.

So yes, Science does hold the answers to everything. It's not a miracle, it's _science_. We're a machine, we can be maintained like one.

Re:This is cute, but...

I'd almost go as far as to posit that this article is an elaborate joke.

Why, exactly, is death a problem? Just pause a moment and really think about why death is a problem, for you.

Life doesn't work without death. In the end, that fact should be very life-affirming and comforting to you. Look around outside and realize that even horrible deaths contribute inifnitely to the natural world.

People weren't meant to live in fear of death.

Re:This is cute, but...

"Why, exactly, is death a problem? Just pause a moment and really think about why death is a problem, for you. Life doesn't work without death. In the end, that fact should be very life-affirming and comforting to you."

Maybe to you. Death is a problem for me because I enjoy life so very much. Death will put a very definite and wholly unwelcomed end to the fun. So far, my life is working just great without death, and I'd like to keep it that way. Do I fear death? NO. I resent it.

I know full well that immortality is impossible, given entropy. That pisses me off. But if longevity is the best the universe has to offer, give me the maximum. I take first rate care of the equipment (at 51, I can still run a mile under 6 minutes, bench my body weight for reps, and cycle all day at 18 mph avg in rolling country), so I think it's perfectly reasonable for me to hold biomedical scientists responsible for doing their part to keep me alive and healthy at least long enough to get tired of it. "Accepting death" is a defeatist attitude that I just cannot abide.

(uh-oh...I seem to have gotten a little worked up)

Re:Don't

Actually strangely enough .. statistically the only way to reduce population growth is to lower the death rate.

Check it in the poulation stats .. the only country to achieve a negative population growth with a high death rate is China. In every other case a high death rate results in an even higher birth rate.

Low birth rates, on the other hand, make for low to negative population growth almost every time.

It's counterintuitive and supprised the heck out of me the first time I noticed that.

Re:Don't

Frankly, in terms of overpopulation you have a lot more to worry about from the people who are out there having 4 or 5 kids than you do from people who don't die of aging.

Just being old doesn't kill relatively that many people -- accidents, cancer, suicide, abuse of your body (smoking, drinking, etc) and other mortality factors knock off most people before they manage to linger into their triple digits in some retirement home.

Re:Don't

Well, you generally don't die of "old age," but when you get older your susceptibility to certain diseases / conditions increases dramatically. Presumably, part of getting people to live forever would be to keep them in good health -- for instance, if you could halt the aging process at forty, people would be unlikely to fall prey to diseases that primarily affect the very old.

Re:Don't

People should not be allowed to live without aging. The world is already overpopulated as is

Simple solution: Annual Free Motorcycle day!
That'll take care of that overpopulation problem in a jiffy!

Re:Don't

Too many people will result in depletion of resources and overpopulation... I would prefer not to have that life for my grandkids one day.

Really? You are worried about your grandkids having problems with overpopulation? Are you "white" or of some european decent? You shouldn't be worried about overpopulation then, because people of european decent are dying out. Russians, Europeans, and Americans of European decent are all having less and less children.

While health care is better than it was 50 years ago, that doesn't make up for only having 1 or 2 children instead of 5 or 6. Reasons for less children are many, and they aren't going away. Things such as greater access to birth control, and social security (and such programs) to care for the elderly, etc. As populations move twards a western lifestyle, they reproduce less. There will be a breaking point in many countries when the old people who can no longer work need to be supported by a generation of young people half their size. This will in fact break socialism, social security, or whatever program the governments are using to take care of the elderly. The only solutions are mass immigration or a plague. Look at how the US is opening up it's borders despite it's terrorism problem.

If there is a scientific way to keep people from the effects of aging, it should be pursued so elderly people can still support themselves.

Re:Don't

This is as naive as the people who predicted a constant exponential growth - you're trying to predict a trend based on the last few data points. There's no reason to believe that industrialized nations cause themselves to die out. For one thing, the nations having the most problems (the Scandinavian countries) are beginning to push towards trying to encourage people to have more children (one of the countries suggested putting state sponsored porn on TV, if memory serves).

Porn is going to encourage people to have children? Now there is a backwards through if I ever saw one. The problem isn't a lack of sexual desire.

And you also forgot another one - late interest in children.

I didn't want to make a 5 page post out of it. There are several reasons for a population implosion. Late interest in children due to working mothers is one, another is lack of religon, lack of agriculture (no need for 10 kids to work the farm), de-valuation of the family unit, female liberation, increased acceptance of homosexuality, etc. That isn't even getting into increases in impotence, or people just choosing not to have children. I'm not saying these are all bad things, what I am saying is that western culture could bring about it's own death which would be sad. :_(

Here's a thought experiment for you - what if it's not that people don't want children, but that people want children later in life?

that is only one small piece of the problem.

Fertility drops off significantly in the 40s,

Only for women.

so convolving the dropping fertility with a shift in the age at which people want children will naturally lead to a lower birth rate. The total number of average *desired* children might not be changing at all.

Ok, so say women can have babies until they are 50. I still don't think that will make a large difference in the grand scheme of things. It wont change 1.5 million abortions a year in the US alone, or how many children aren't born because of birth control. Again, I'm not saying these are bad things socially, but the are leading the US to a shrinking population.

But then what happens when science is able to significantly improve the fertility of those in their 40s? A boom happens all over again.

Unlikely. How many children are they going to have at 40? 1? Not only do you have to improve a women's chance to become pregnant, you have to do something about the greater miscarrage rate women have over 35.

Like I said, it's a little naive to say that the birth rate trend won't change. They thought this back in the 80s, as well. I'm sure they had just as impressive reasons

No, they didn't. Their reasoning was "People are fucking, people are going to continue to fuck". Sorry to put it so bluntly, but that was about the extent of it. I don't think in the 70's when "the population bomb" (or whatever the book was named) came out that they put much thought into what role abortion or womens rights might play with the population.

as we have for believing that the birth rate will continue along its (relatively recent) trend. But despite our arrogance, we really haven't figured out human societal trends yet.

Agreed it might not continue along it's trend, but I don't see any factors to stop it. Do you? Improved fertility will help, but that alone wont do it. Men and Women have to have the desire to have large families. They may have the desire to "do the deed" but they certainly don't want to deal with trying to raise a large family, at least here in the US. The best solution might be incentives from the government. As much as I like the idea of Free Porn (god bless the Scandinavian countries) I don't think that alone will do it. Perhaps the affected countries could make some kind of large finacial incentive for the middle class to have children. In the end, I think the US will solve it's problem VIA mass

In response to the anticipated flood ...

As to the question of life becoming so long that it loses its meaning, De Grey has a response that's truly guaranteed to silence critics: If you don't want to try it, you can simply reject rejuvenation therapy and fade away.

Bingo. It seems like there are always people who whine every time the subject of immortality comes up -- overpopulation, interfering with the divine plan, or just, "I wouldn't want to live forever. I'd get bored." To which the proper answer is: you can always die. If you feel that you're selfishly using up too much of the planet's resources, or that God doesn't want you to live past a certain age, or the ennui of your endless existence is too much to bear (oh, the angst!), fine -- please kill yourself now.

But of course people don't do this, because it is inherent in the nature of life to want to live. People who think a 200- or 1000- or 50000-year lifespan is nightmarish will still struggle, at the end of their lives, to hold on to whatever years or months or even days of life they have left. We rage against the dying of the light because the urge to live is part of our every cell.

So, for those of you who think this kind of research is a terrible thing, an affront to God and man -- please go off somewhere to die quietly. And those of us who choose to live will drink a toast on your graves.

Re:In response to the anticipated flood ...

The problem is that I want to live forever, but I don't particularly want to have to share the world with everyone else being immortal as well. If world population were reduced by 75%, culling out the bottom 75% of the IQ curve, the world would be very nearly perfect.

Heh. You've got a point. Oh well, if aging turns out to be curable, maybe stupidity will too. ;)

Re:In response to the anticipated flood ...

Culling of the bottom 75% of IQ is not the smartest thing.

Cull the bottom 75% by physical beauty and then just rule over them.

Re:In response to the anticipated flood ...

Here, here! I see a lot of universe out there to explore and colonize. Just because a few naysayers are convinced that immortality is not worthwhile, won't stop me from trying to extend my life. There's always a beneficial solution somewhere, if you are creative enough to think of it.

Re:In response to the anticipated flood ...

I doubt this is going to give real trouble. Consider this, if we're immortal all those long term problems (overpopulation, global warming,...) are suddenly problems we are going to suffer from and not just a nameless, faceless distant decendant. Doesn't that give you reason to start working on a decent solution?

Re:Engineering a new planet?

I hate crowded planets.

Heh. But the threat of immortality might not make it all that crowded.

Some years back, I read of an interesting study. The question was phrased as: Assuming that people's bodies could be kept at the 20-year-old state indefinitely. All diseases, accidents, violence, etc would happen to you with the probability of a 20-year-old. Consulting medical and actuarial databases, how many years would this add to the mean lifespan?

The answer turned out to be about 15 years.

The primary observation was that, while older people are on the average more susceptible to such things than younger people, the difference isn't all that great. Making your body "immortal" wouldn't make you immune to death from the things that kill you now. It would just increase somewhat your chances of surviving. An auto accident, gunshot, or HIV virus would still end a life, but maybe just a bit later than now.

To get a real change and a population problem from immortality, we'd also need many social changes that blocked all the things that are now quite effective at killing young people.

15 years? More like 800 years.

Assuming that people's bodies could be kept at the 20-year-old state indefinitely. All diseases, accidents, violence, etc would happen to you with the probability of a 20-year-old. Consulting medical and acturial databases, how many years would this add to the mean lifespan?

I don't believe that "15 year" answer, so I looked at a mortality table and did the math myself. I came up with an estimate of 800 years.

The acturial tables that you want are called mortality tables. Here is a collection of them from the American National Center for Health Statistics.

NCHS Data Warehouse [cdc.gov]

Going to the first table, death rates by age, the death rate for 15-24 year olds is 80.7 per 100,000 (all states, 2001).

This means that in the year 2001, in this population group, for each 100,000 people, 99,919.3 of people of these ages lived, and 80.7 of them died.

Or, to scale it down: start with 1000 people. In a year, 1 person dies, and 999 live. What's the average life span of that population? It's a hell of a lot longer than "15 more than normal 60 or so"!

A quick calculation, log(0.5)/log(0.999193)), shows that the median life expectancy of a "perpetual 20 year old", would be 858 more years. That is, if you had 100,000 of these perpetual 20 year olds, after 858 years, 50,000 of them would still be alive.

Calculating average is a bit trickier and I'll leave it alone.

The primary observation was that, while older people are on the average more susceptible to such things than younger people, the difference isn't all that great.

Oh yes it is.

ALL AGES: 848.5
0-1 year: 683.4
1-4 years: 33.3
5-14 years: 17.3
15-24 years: 80.7
25-34 years: 105.2
35-44 years: 203.6
45-54 years: 428.9
55-64 years: 964.6
65-74 years: 2,353.3
75-84 years: 5,582.4
85+ years: 15,112.8

A 50 year old has 5 times the chance of dying as a 20 year old. A 60 year old has 12 times the chance of dying as a 20 year old.

NCHS has lots of interesting tables like these; or you can google for "mortality table" and get tables from other sources, too.

Re:In response to the anticipated flood ...

Does this longevity include a increased period of fertility? If not then I wonder if the biological imperative to reproduce will produce a conflict that is not so easy to "cure" and I don't mean the incresing population, I mean the deep seated drive to make offspring being tempered by teh reality that 1100 years is a lot of offspring that one almost certainly cannot actually afford to raise. It might lead to some very complex problems. Even more weird if you live for 1100 years but can only produce offspring for the first 5% of them. Might make you go made. Might be very different for men and women. Might be _very_ scary.

Re:Eggs?

females are born with all the eggs they'll ever produce

Very recently, this was shown to be false [newscientist.com], at least for mice. But everyone now confidently expects to find similar results in humans.

Re:In response to the anticipated flood ...

Bingo. It seems like there are always people who whine every time the subject of immortality comes up -- ...interfering with the divine plan

Whenever the subject of interfering with nature / the divine plan comes up, I refer to this response which I heard one day in an interview: the single development in recorded history which has most vastly extended lifespans was the invention of the toilet... yet you don't hear people going around debating the morality of having toilets.

Re:In response to the anticipated flood ...

interfering with nature / the divine plan
you don't hear people going around debating the morality of having toilets.

Speke for ye selfe. I tosse me shite out the windoe as olde tymes. This I wolde beseche thee hertely, rid ye selves of the infernal toilets! To be carnally mynded is to be emnyte agaynst God! Look ye and fynde how bleste to lyve. [ebay.com]

-

That's great if you only care about yourself...

Though people may cite overpopulation and religious reasons why we shouldn't do this, those are just straw men.

The real reason is because this totally turns the natural order of things upside-fucking-down which will likely be to our detriment. If you only care about yourself as is human nature (and particularly reinforced by individualistic American values) then fine, try to live forever. But as far as our species is concerned, living forever is not necessarily the most advantageous. Of course no one can see all ends, but consider:

People living forever means less need for kids, which slows down evolution. Do we want to be strictly responsible for our own genetics? How do we identify practical genetic defects if we never die? Our existence as a species will then be dependent on the survival of a highly technological civilization which is far from guaranteed.

Take away the motivation of a limited lifespan and suddenly everything seems a lot less urgent. Motivation to learn, motivation to find the meaning of life, motivation to accomplish something. After all, you can always do it later.

How does the human brain develop at such extreme ages? We all know that people are shaped by childhood experience, and that many old people are set in their ways. With a huge population who 'have it all figured out' how will we continue to make progress? Periodic lobotomies?

I'm all for extending life through healthier living, but the quest for the fountain of youth is an egotistical obsession stemming from the fear of death. Personally I refuse to let the fear of death drive me to radical genetic techniques to extend the inevitable. I don't want to be some kind of artifically-preserved shell of a human, and I don't think anybody should want to (though I wouldn't stop them). What people need nowadays (in America anyway) is acceptance of the fact that we can't control everything. The best you can do is live your life well, make good decisions, and hopefully fate will be kind.

Re:That's great if you only care about yourself...

People living forever means less need for kids, which slows down evolution

Evolution holds little relevance to humans today. Those with genetic disorders are fixed through medicine. Those with "undesireable" traits are given enough beneficial environment to counter them (eyeglasses, dyslexia, autism; yes I know these may/may not have genetic components). There is little to no natural selection any more. I won't even get into the whole "stupid people breed more" argument, but it's been said on /. before.

Take away the motivation of a limited lifespan and suddenly everything seems a lot less urgent.

You may have a point there. It's been argued before, and it may or may not have merit. Is Niven's vision correct, or is Asimov's? Will octagenarians become more flexible when they realize that 80 is not really old? That 800 is not even all that old? How much of that inflexibility is the result of the knowledge that death is near? How much is from biological/biochemical processes associated with aging? How much is associated with the accumulation of years on the mind? We really don't know, and can't know until it is tried and observed.

What people need nowadays (in America anyway) is acceptance of the fact that we can't control everything.

Says who? God? Fate? The Universe? Sure, there are things we can't comtrol right now, and there *may* be some things we can *never* control. However, there is no way of knowing that until you try to control them. Otherwise, it's just an assumption with no basis.

I have no fear of death, but I will be dead for billions of years. I'm in no hurry. Life is short. Even a thousand years is short compared to eternity. Fear of becoming an "artifically-preserved shell of a human" is based on assumption as well. We have absolutely no idea what the mental makeup of a 200 year old person would be, much less an 800 year old.

Re:In response to the anticipated flood ...

That is, of course, assuming He didn't leave the bag of tricks out in the open on purpose, to watch us discover His Creation in all its great depth and subtlety.

Job applications of the future

Java/Swing developer required. Must have a minimum of 800 years of experience, with at least 600 of those having been gained in a financial environment.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Job applications of the future

Amusing, but think about the effects of people not just working for 30-40 years, but hundreds. A person could become experienced and knowledgable in a subject to levels which we can't imagine, and who knows what they could come up with.

Or a person could spend 50 years in a career, then take 5-10 off and learn something entirely new, then start a career there. Think about all the benefits that could come from that sort of inter-disciplinary work? What might someone who's been a chef, a writer, a materials engineer, and a chemist bring to a new job?

Re:Job applications of the future

If I had points right now, I'd mod you insightful. The prospect of great minds being able to study not only sciences but arts as well harkens back to the Da Vinci "renaissance man", who could draw from all his knowledge and inspiration to create a synergy of new and groundbreaking ideas. If and when people are able to invest such time in many disciplines, we may just see another intellectual spark, such as in ancient Greece, the Renaissance or the Age of Enlightenment. During such a time, perhaps people will begin to realize that all disciplines are interconnected, or as a Zen proverb says, "All ways are One in the end".

Memory limitations

But what is the capacity of the human brain? More than 25 years ago, I was writing HP/1000 assembly code; yet I certainly couldn't do that today without completely relearing it.

Re:Job applications of the future

If we're still using Java/Swing 800 years from now, then you can keep your immortality drugs!

Re:Job applications of the future

If we're still using Java/Swing 800 years from now, then you can keep your immortality drugs!

1964 Slashdot: "If we're still using COBOL 40 years from now, then you can keep your age-extension drugs!"

What happens to 100+ year old memories

The computer brain transfer bit aside, you brought up an interesting topic: What problems with the mind will crop up after the first hundred years or so? What happens to memories after such a long period of time? Will people forget their childhood after a couple hundred years? How much capacity does the brain have?

With diseases like Alzheimers we at least have an idea of what causes it, and we know what changes happen to the brain as it progresses.... I think it's only a matter of time before it can be prevented. However, I daresay that theories about where and how exactly memories are formed and stored in the brain are mostly wild speculation. We know the roles that certain regions of the brain play in memory, and there are some good abstract models (such as the Phonological loop and the Visuospatial sketchpad) but we are a very long way away from knowing how these are done at the hardware level of the brain.

Re:Nano medicine != we can play god...

Who said murdering young children? There's a difference between wearing a rubber or getting your tubes tied and killing babies... Yeesh

-Jesse

for one thing

that means we could send people on super-long space exploration voyages, provided we can also engineer an end to 0-gravity boneloss

Re:for one thing

We already have an answer, it's called rotational gravity. Of course, nobody's going to put up the trillions of dollars needed to build a spaceship large enough to use it effectively.

Live longer now

A fair amount of what kills us can be ameliorated by diet, excercise, and reduced stress. It may sound overly simplistic but there is a fair amount of evidence that supports the notion that these are the reasons some folks in parts of the old Soviet Union as well as some places in China and a few other locales live, routinely, to age 100.

Happy Trails!

Erick

murder rate will sky rocket

The murder rate will sky rocket because

1) Wives will just get tired of thier husbands if they have to live together that long and vice versa.

2)If people won't just die on their own then someone will end up killing them. Right now, we at least have the feeling that some peopel will just die someday.

3)If you have my neighbors for that long of a time you might kill them too.

CMX-1152 / ependymin / ROHLEN

CMX-1152 a.k.a. ROHLEN [ceremedix.com] seems to be a credible way of relieving oxidative stress. More info here [sundayherald.com] and here [google.com].

Ray Kurzweil...

I recently saw Ray Kurzweil give a talk. His new book, coming out in October, will be titled How to Live Long Enough to Live Forever. He touched on several topics that will advance longevity. Much was about nanotech and how it will become part of our bodies. He says in the past few years, he's gotten about 10 years younger in 'absolute age.' Neat Stuff.

Low Caloric Diets

Low Caloric diets have long been fabled to extend life (with mixed results). This so far has been the most promising way of extending life, although depending on how you look at it, it's not really extending human life but allowing us to reach our potential. Think of a wild animal with the eating/lifestyle habbits we humans have. Don't think turtles would live so long smoking and eating McDonald's. (Me not good at html linky stuff) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A255 64-2004Apr19.html http://webapp.abclocal.go.com/kabc/health/032304_h s_low_cal_diet.html http://www.youngagain2000.com/lowcalorie.html

spam

forget the penis enlargement spam. now, you can look 25 forever and get a penis enlargement. and of course it will come from my grandma who still looks 25.

Entropy will win

Aging is a response to mutations which naturally build up over time. Most aging is the slowing down of metabolism so as the reduce cell activity in order to reduce mutations. If you bypass this slowdown, then mutations will build up faster. Entropy will then win in the end anyhow and one will die of cancer.

The only total solution I see is some kind of nanoprobes that cleans up DNA/RNA errors in potentially each and every cell. Only then we can turn up the metabolism to 20-year-old levels. But, that is a long way off.

Re:Entropy will win

Bollocks. First, entropy doesn't enter into it because a human being is not a closed system. Second, your "mutations" theory is complete fiction, because if that were the case, then the defects would be inherited by offspring.

Heinlein...

...suggested breeding for longevity. His book Methuselah's Children talks about it some.

Basically, you look for people who have all four original grandparents still living, and encourage them to breed with each other. Money was the incentive used.

But then, his concept required that you start the project in the 1800s. Today, I imagine you'd probably look for people with all eight great-grandparents surviving.

I'm currently 58 years old and I'm not bored..

My mom is 81 and she's busier than she's ever been although physical constraints are starting to slow her down. My grandmother died very alert, aware and reasonable active at age 100 and said she was ready to go, but it had mostly to do with the fact that her friends had all been dead for a long time by then.

Some people would look forward to a longer life because they find some meaning in their lives and others, I am sure, don't and probably would not partake of these treatments. I suggest that you folks who are not familiar with Robert A. Heinlein's novels several of which concern, among other things, longevity issues. Take a look at "Time Enough for Love"(1973).

"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

If there is evera formula to end the aging process

...then most likely the people who shouldn't be using it would be the ones to take it.

The last thing we need are for the idiots to live forever.

Overpopulation isn't the problem

Well, ok, it could be a considerable problem if people stopped aging to death, but it wouldn't be the biggest problem.

The biggest problem is that our society would collapse from corruption. It's a pretty simple formula. Powerful people maintain their power by maintaining the status quo. The more powerful a person is, the stronger their grip on the status quo. These people purposely manipulate the opinions of the less powerful people (via control of the media and other less well-publicised means) in order to do this, and we generally fall for it pretty readily.

The only serious mechanism for social change is the death of the powerful. If death stopped being inevitable, then the rich and powerful would be the first ones to get that technology.

At that point, the only means for social change would become bloody revolution. Finding and killing the methuselas would become an obscession for anyone who wanted to change things for the better (or even at all).

I think that that world is inevitable, but I don't look forward to it.

Regarding non-charismatic dictatorships

This phenomena is well studied in the form of non-charismatic dictatorships. When power is inherited, it gets diffused via several mechanisms. For instance:

1. The kid doesn't know how to weild the power and loses respect.
2. The kid disagrees with the parent about how power should be weilded.
3. Power is divided among several siblings (this is especially true about money), and some of it is lost due to lack of appreciation for it.

Of course, none of that stopped the Plantagenets from ruling England for over two hundred and fifty years, but I suspect that immortality would have extended this reign, probably to the current day.

(Shamelessly ripped off from The Onion)

In other news:

World Death Rate Remains Steady at 100%

World Death Rate, Annual
------------------------
2004 (est) 100.00%
2003 100.00%
2002 100.00%
2001 100.00%
2000 100.00%
Source: USA Today

Death certificate never says "due to aging"

I haven't RTFA yet, but I'll comment anyway. From what I learned in med school so far, you're not allowed to state that the cause of death is "old age" on a death certificate [cdc.gov]. What I'm trying to get at is, most people don't "die of old age" as the slashdot blurb seems to imply above. Usually it's a problem such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, diabetes, etc. So the person submitting the story should have said "Engineering an end to problems/diseases that arise from old age." There is nothing wrong with aging per se, it's the health problems that are more probable to occur at old age that kills you. I realize it's a matter of semantics, but in such an age-phobic society (i.e. the US), I feel that things like this have to be voiced to stem other social problems such as "age-ism." Moreover, all the money spent to extend the last few years of life is overtaking needed health expenditures in other areas -- such as child healthcare and universal coverage. It seems that 90% of healthcare costs are being spent to extend life just another 10% or less. I'd rather support expenditures in areas such as hospice.

Reference to a previous /. story

"The President's Council on Bioethics [bioethics.gov] met this month to discuss Age-Retardation: Scientific Possibilities and moral challenges [bioethics.gov]. The consensus was that "aging is a natural part of the life cycle, not a disease." Think Social Security was discussed?" Bruce Sterling's book Holy Fire is a good look at this issue if you find it interesting.

Here's a link... [slashdot.org]

And a link to the current site of bioethics.gov's views on aging retardation. [bioethics.gov]

Longer Lives = A Better World

We get more willing to look past materialistic pursuits as we age because by the time we're older, we realize what is really important in life is the people and the relationships in it.

By the time we realize it, life is over, and we need to hunker down to prepare for uncertain health in old age.

I wonder what the world would be like if my grandparents were still around and healthy and vibrant as say.. 40 year olds? I wonder what the world would be like if the wisdom and compassion that accumulates with age was allowed to be expressed by vibrant and energetic elderly instead of being locked up in the shadows we become?

Really what we are talking about here a child understands and we fatalistically complicate things with our hopelessness that anything can be done about aging..

Life is good.

Death is bad

and anyone who suggests that the suffering and death of millions is desirable and that the "negative" changes to our world that would come about by extending life couldn't be dealt with should take a real hard look at what they are saying...From what I've been able to see so far.. our world could do with a few changes.
br

Bias

If people lived longer would we see an end to hatred.

I personally have no problem with people from Japan.
My grandfather disliked them, he lost a borther in WW2
My grandfather is dead.
If he lived to be 2,000 years would he ever get over this?

Would the Japanense who dislike Americas for the atmoic bomb ever get over it?

Death solves many problem including this one.

Wow, that is hilarious!

As an added bonus, I don't think you'll find a more succinct (and utterly British) answer to overpopulation objections to life extension than the one at the end of this article!"

FORTUNE is published biweekly and may also publish occasional extra issues. Cover price is $4.99. Rate good in U.S. only. In Canada, 6 issues/$6.95C, 14 issues/$13.90C, subject to GST, HST, and QST. Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery of your first issue. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within two years.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Those crazy Brits!

5000 years? I think not

5000 years is won't happen without some major restructuring of society. As we currently have things set up you have a 50% chance of being involved in a fatal accident by the time you are 300.

The Usual Moronic Primate Responses on Page 1

"Who wants to live forever?" (That was a Queen song from "Highlander", a movie about immortals,BTW) I do, moron.

Overpopulation? Not when we Transhumanists get through with you monkeys. Your population will be nicely culled, thank you - assuming you don't do it first with your brain-dead wars and inability to cooperate well enough to feed yourselves.

Cloning? Au contraire, mon frere - cloning produces an entirely independent entity - does nothing for immortalizing YOU - unless you brain transplant which raises issues about the clone's brain. And it still leaves you biological and just as subject to death as the next clone.

The only solution to immortality is direct replacement of human biology with nanotech - body, brain, the works - non-destructive, fault-tolerant, failure-tolerant, restartable and resurrectable procedures only.

This will be done.

And whatever you monkeys think about it is irrelevant.

You're going to die. I won't.

Have a nice day.

Age and Evolution

As pointed out by Richard Dawkins in his brilliant book The selfish gene [amazon.com] death of age is nothing more than just a spinoff of evolution. The bar of age just seems to be there because people were able to reproduce already and that fact alone makes genes successful that might proof fatal inside older bodies.

If we would reproduce beyond the age of 80 then evolution would HAVE to select the genes that are vital for longevity (is this the word? german here.). He also claims that it would be theoretically possible to raise the bar by passing a law that would forbid reproduction before the age of 40, then 50 and so on. Of course this is utopical but if you look at it it makes pretty much sense...

The spice extends life

As it stands now, your children don't end up like steadily more badly-mutated humans because there's a 'pre-culling' process that goes on. Sperm with bad mutations die or never make it very far. Eggs undergo a lesser culling process. Embryos that have problems are by and large let go naturally by the body - and mostly with good reason.

Those 'proving grounds' reset most genetic troubles from generation to generation, something that we cannot do quite as well for our own cells.

Michael West's The Immortal Cell [amazon.com] is a pretty interesting account of one researcher who has been chasing the dream for a number of years. It's pretty fascinating reading, and those who haven't been watching the field will be amazed at what we have not only figured out, but what we have actually accomplished.

One option that comes up for the shorter term is tissue cloning. There are actually a number of things we know already (some from Michael West's book):

• We actually know what telomerase (the complex that extends the telomere) is
• We know how to enucleate (get the nucleus out of) eggs, put in a new nucleus, and get it to divide
• The only contribution an enucleated egg makes to cell is the mitochondria
• Mitochondria don't vary in their specific functionality all that much between mammalian species
• This means we can actually use the eggs from other mammals

(It seems we can also 'reset' cellular programs by de-alkylating histones - those big 4-piece wintergreen mints that DNA is wrapped around. Histone alkyl 'tails' seem to have a lot to do with telling a cell what it actually does. Some of West's research indicates that you can get this to happen as part of the tissue cloning process)

So, instead of using hard-to-procure human eggs, you can perhaps use rabbit eggs (I'm sure the Australians wouldn't mind) and have what amounts to basically switching Duracell batteries for Energizer batteries. You can then pick out the healthy clonal cells for division into tissues.

With genomics, proteomics and experimentation, we can find the hormones or hormone chains to specialize the cells into skin, retinas, livers or even bone marrow.

Bone marrow gets my vote as a worthy cause. Being able to produce blood from the DNA of known-good donors would provide a decent backup if the ideal solution - cloning blood from the patient's own DNA - can't be done in time.

Sure beats any other 'stem cell source' we can get our hands on.

The next steps would be to try repairing aging cells in situ. The two biggies to fix which researchers have identified are the shortening telomeres (chromosome caps) and mitochondria (they are more susceptible to mutation, being more bacteria-like and exposed to by-products of burning food for energy).

Some good news at least in that it seems that we might not induce cancer in an attempt to lengthen telomeres - although further testing will be required.

It's pretty amazing how far we've come, but the things that are going to make the difference are going into the pipeline now - expect pretty fantastic things in 20 years, perhaps even 15.

High Maintenance Lifestyle

You know, given enough time and money, this can work, but, as someone else has pointed out, don't think that the treatment will be some magic pill that you can take, some nanomachine that you can just set, inject, and forget. While the laws of thermodynamics don't automatically make living forever impossible, you still have to pay attention to them.

Entropy will win in the end. The most you can do is delay the inevitable.

Most likely, living forever will require some very intensive regimen. Maybe less intensive as the centuries go by, but surely for the first subjects, it will be a serious pain in the ass. Injections (or their futuristic equivalent--transdermal sprays, nanofine needles, I don't know) every day, pills three times a day, trips to the doctor, trips to the pharmacy. You'll have to change your lifestyle, because I'm sure that at least the first few generations of these treatments will only be optimized for people who are still relatively healthy. So it is unlikely that, at least for the first few hundred years, you'll be able to eat as many Big Macs as you would like. And maybe they might disqualify you if you do something to yourself that causes damage. Either metabolically, by eating nothing but trans-saturated fats, or traumatically, like falling off of a cliff while rock-climbing.

And I bet you that bad things will happen if you happen to slack off on any of these things. Or that you physically, chemically, and biologically won't be able to continue once you reach a certain threshold of non-compliance to the regimen.

Not to mention that this will certainly cost a shitload of money. There will be very few immortals in the first few centuries, and the ironic thing is that they'll probably be disinclined to reproduce. (Assuming that this process doesn't render you sterile anyway.)

And if Western civilization gets set back somehow, a la the European Middle Ages, then you can kiss your immortality goodbye, because clearly something this intensive will require the infrastructure of a fully functioning civilization.

So, is it possible? Certainly. Is it probable? I'm a little less sure about that.

You can still always get killed in a car crash or by a bullet in the head. And it'll certainly take even longer to develop methods of reversing death than it will to develop methods of extending life.

And then, even if you can somehow keep from getting killed traumatically, and we somehow keep civilization from getting set back the way that human history so far demonstrates that it cyclically does, you still have to worry about that killer asteroid that has our name written on it. And if we get off the planet, there's the sun exploding. If we get to another star, the Milky Way will get sucked into the black hole at the galactic center. And then eventually, there's the heat death of the expanding universe.

Forever is a long time.

Immortality requires a certain mindset

Immortality requires a mindset that is completely counter to modern thinking. Today we live moment to moment, and more or less treat this world, and everyone in it, as if they were disposable.

For an immortal, the consequences of any short-sighted decision WILL come to roost. Live your life exploiting other people? You WILL have to deal with those people, or their offspring later in life. (Or you WILL sooner or later make someone made enough to kill you.) Have a propensity for collecting junk? After a few hundred years, you are going to have a mountian of trash to clean up.

To an immortal, what you are paying at the pump right now doesn't mean squat. It's will the CO2 your Taho is shooting in the air flood his beach house in 100 years. Taxes today don't matter as much as the economic chaos that decades of deficit spending will cause.

To be an immortal requires a set of ethics that Jesus and Lao Tsu would be proud of. And it's not out of "goodness", it's out of self-preservation.

Two options for the Over-Population Problem

Don't know if others have pointed this out, but I see two clear options for dealing with the over-population problem in a future society where technology allows the average lifespan to increase indefinitely.

Option 1: Reproduction only allowed for 'Finite-life-span' people

This option proposes a rule that people will only be allowed to have children if they agree to switch back to a 'finite' life span (presumably of some traditional duration like less than 100 years or so). That rule, in conjunction with a 'one-child-per-parent' rule, would prevent population explosion.

Option 2: Reproduction only allowed if you go off-planet at some point.

In this second option, indefinite-life-span people are allowed to reproduce on Earth, but after some specified duration, they have to leave the planet and 'retire' somewhere in outer space, in order to prevent population explosion.

As our technology for maintaining human health becomes more powerful, the population/reproduction issue will become critical at some point. People should remember that the same technology that can prevent aging will also be able to drastically reduce the probability of accidental death for a significant percentage of the population.

I'm curious if anyone else has thought of alternative ideas for dealing with the problem of reproduction with indefinite lifespan.

mhack

His numbers are wrong

His figures for WWII and WWI are incorrect, the WWII figures are off by a lot. It almost appears he's only counting the military dead. And that's not even considering that the "official" figures for the Russian civilian dead run as high as 20 million. At face value, it cannot be said whether this is an honest discrepancy between "offical" sources, or if he was employing some creative accounting to opportunistically make his point. If he has fudge the figures, that puts the entire premise into a suspect light. Reality is what it is; trying to shape it as a means to an end speaks to basic issues of integrity and the most obvious next question is what else may have been "adjusted"?

Then there's the matter of perspective. The plage of the 1300's killed as much as half of the population in the cities that did not institute quarantines, which flys in the face of his "age is the number one killer" premise.

Woody Allen says...

Woody Allen says...

"Some people want to achieve immortality
through their works or their descendants; I
want to achieve immortality through not dying."

-- Woody Allen

Re:We should not tamper with natural selection

The anti-aging technology, if ever completed will stop the evolution of the species.

We've been messing with natural selection ever since the beginning of medicine; it's a bit late to object now.

Furthermore, this will probably only benefit the richest, not the fittest...

Maybe at first, but there was a time when only the rich, or only governments, could afford computers. In the US today, poor people have TVs that the wealthy could only dream of in the 50s. Anti-aging technology will start out expensive, but it won't stay that way--and besides, doesn't the idea of the wealthy being the beta testers appeal to your little class-warfare soul?