Humans Could Live For 1000 Years 156
Maajid wrote to mention an article on the Chronicle of Higher Education site about a biogerontologist who thinks he can kill death. From the article: "The 42-year-old English biogerontologist has made his name by claiming that some people alive right now could live for 1,000 years or longer. Maybe much longer. Growing old is not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the human condition; rather, it is the result of accumulated damage at the cellular and molecular levels that medical advances will soon be able to prevent -- or even reverse -- allowing people to go on living pretty much indefinitely. We'll still have to worry about angry bears and falling pianos, but aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat. Death, as we know it, will die."
Dying of old age? (Score:4, Insightful)
Further more, would we all have to look like Yoda after awhile?
Re:Dying of old age? (Score:4, Interesting)
The chance of contracting many of these conditions is greatly increased with age , if we can limit the decay associated with that then chances of contracting these conditions is also limited .
Though the 1000 year target is not taking into account environmental damage , it seems reasonable figure for perfect conditions .
limiting the cellular ageing will also help us to look a lot more youthful for a great deal longer
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
Took the words right out of my mouth. There was a book I read a long time ago, can't remember what it was called, but it dealt with this very issue. There was an elite class of super-rich who could afford an indefinite life span. The problems were many. Firstly, there was overpopulation. This is what happens when fewer people die but the planet stays the sa
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
I intend on living that long so I can have a pet robot , hover cars , a massive space ship and play Duke Nukem forever( don't tell me you didn't see that coming)
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
Please don't slow progress down for those of us who want to seek out new solar systems ... and wrap them with Dyson spheres.
As to your non-sequitor end quote, a line from the bible fits: "even the devil can quote gospel" -- in other words, a liar sometimes tells the truth, you cannot simply state "I don't like this person therefore I disagree with everything they say" and expect to be internally consistent.
And as to the book, there are many authors w
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
A society that can build a Dyson sphere won't need its benefits. Besides, there would be no gravity in a Dyson sphere unless something new comes along, even then, you would need localized gravity sources that don't obey inverse quare because the gravity made by the matter that makes up a sphere is cancelled out inside that sphere.
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
" Ok, you feel free to off yourself any time you like."
I don't think I'll have to, as I consider indefinite longevity to be unattainable during my lifetime. Sure, maybe I'll live to be 120 or 130, tops, but I don't think the average human lifespan is going to even top 200 for many many more decades.
Thanks for the invitation, though. Mighty white of you.
"Please don't slow progress down for those of us who want to seek out new solar systems
What
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2, Interesting)
Psychology isn't an invention to rule the populous, it is only commentary from observation of the populous. The variety of coping abilities among people is virtually infinite. People don't have to constantly look for new things, especially when they don't expect the new things to bring them any kind of satisfaction.
People would continue to live in the same day to day manner that they do now. Suicidal people would tend to not look for longer lives, thrill seekers would get as bor
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
That's a big assumption. How do you know? You've never lived that long, and never seen anybody else do it either. How old are you now, 20? 30? 40? It's real easy to say you'll never get bored of things when there are still things you haven't tried.
And even if you could fill 2-10 lifetimes meaningfully, which I doubt, surely you must realize that, given an indefinite lifespan, you would eventuall
Re:Psychologically infeasable. (Score:2)
Re:Dying of old age? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as cancer goes...since cancer is caused by uncontrolled cell division (and the fact that these cells can invade other tissues) and in my understanding, pretty much sporadic or random if outside environmental issues (smoking, etc) are ignored, it seems like it is only a matter of time before someone gets cancer. If you could actually live to be 1000 until your body just gave out, the likelihood of having cancer in those years would have to be extremely high. However, it appears that curing cancer is one of Aubrey's goals...so that's not a problem either.
Interestingly enough, before he started working with biology, he was trained in computer science. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Dying of old age? (Score:2)
As far as cancer goes...since cancer is caused by uncontrolled cell division (and the fact that these cells can invade other tissues) and in my understanding, pretty much sporadic or random if outside environmental issues (smoking, etc) are ignored, it seems like it is only a matter of time before someone gets cancer.
Yah, but we all have cancer cells in our body all the time. Our immune system is able to take care of them though before they can overwhelm it. What if a lot of cancer were caused by the immu
Re:Dying of old age? (Score:2)
So not prevents... reduces the risk of, though.
Re:Dying of old age? (Score:3, Interesting)
When a cell of yours duplicates the 6 trillion base pairs in your DNA, after the duplication errors result in mistakes (average one in 10,000) and the correction mechanisms clean up as many as they can, there is an average of 1 mistake per cell per dupication. 95% of your DNA is (near as we can tell so far) non-coding; it is not used to build proteins. So
Re:Dying of old age? (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, at the expense of burning my karma I will call "bullshit" on this story. Claims for aging cures are made every year by someone, and yet we still "kick the bucket" like everyone before us. Better hygiene and better drugs and procedures is what helps us live slighlty longer than our parents and grandparents, not some kind of magical cure-all aging panacea.
But of course the thought of death is a terrible thing so people buy into all these "finally we found cure for aging". It is like selling penis enhancement pills, it is just a clever play on people's insecurities and fears. If someone does want a good cure for aging, better try Alex Chiu's site [insolitology.com]. You can just buy yourself two nice little rings and of course live forever (...until you die of stupidity or cancer, of course).
Put up and show it is "bullshit"? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is garbage (and YOU aren't full of it yourself!) what are the errors in the arguments??
Just that something hasn't been done is not a serious answer; there has been literally hundreds of "firsts" the last 150 years.
Some of the proposed solutions aren't exactly trivial -- e.g. "simply" moving genes from the mitochondria and then move back finished proteins would be a large change! (Sure, some proteins are made in the cell kernel and moved to the mitochondrias already, but to get the right levels of manufacturing, etc, etc. Not easy.)
To do that modification in living bodies seem ... well, a factor of ten harder still!
But is should be doable theoretically. And probably practically. I haven't read that much biochemistry, but I can't say that any of the points strike me as theoretically impossible.
So what is wrong?? Is the list of needed fixes incomplete?
A serious answer would be appreciated. I'm curious and you seem to be certain in your opinion. You should know, yes?
Re:Put up and show it is "bullshit"? (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess is yes, it is. One theory of aging is that we are carrying around many genes which are harmful, but have a serious effect later in life. Such genes were never selected against when expected lifetimes were 35 years or less. Now that we have cured many things that prevented people from getting to 30 or 40, we are seeing new problems that prevent people from getting to 100 or 150. But who's to say that there are not even more aging effects that will only become apparent after 150 or 200 years? It seems shortsighted to assume that the aging processes that are a problem now are the only things we need to overcome in order to live thousands of years.
I also think that a lot of the items on his list amount to replacement of body parts, whether whole organs or DNA. That isn't really reversing aging... That's just repair work which is likely to be needed more and more frequently as the person gets older. It also doesn't address the non-replaceable parts like the brain. Neurons continually die off during a person's adult life, and you don't grow new ones... that's going to be significant after a few hundred years.
If ageing is really to be solved, I think it will be done from the inside, by understanding and altering the functions of harmful genes. That's a long ways in the future, though.
Uhm, isn't that already discussed? (Score:3, Insightful)
That is quite likely.
The argument is that the known list of problems can be solved in a few decades. The next bunch of problems will be solved faster, when there is functioning gene therapy on living humans(!). (-: There might be continous attrition amongst the oldest people living... :-)
I haven't read too carefully (one of the previous times it was posted), but I think that is the "of
Re:Uhm, isn't that already discussed? (Score:2)
I did: see No evidence of new neurons in adult primate neocortex [unisci.com], among others. The general consensus seems to be that some areas of the brain have some capability to generate new neurons, but there's no evidence that it can happen in the neocortex, which is a pretty critical part... Though if you can point me to more recent research that contradicts t
The jury is still out :-) (Score:2)
But [eurekalert.org] the jury is still out, anyway. :-)
Neurogenesis seems to be well documented for songbird neocortex, though.
Since the argument we're discussing assumes working genetic engineering in the body, it seems like a smaller problem to extend the functioning from the speech center of birds to mammal brains... :-)
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
Hmm... ok, that was a good argument. But higher level system features like brain reactions?
To just look at biochemistry is like looking only at the metabolical level for obesity. Hunger/appetite reactions is the deciding factor there. (Or maybe even psychology!)
We don't know much about age changes that aren't purely physical. (I
Re:Put up and show it is "bullshit"? (Score:2)
And I'm sure they'll bitch about those problems and how medicine's too expensive when those problems emerge.
You want medicine as cheap as it used to be? Stop going to the doctor after age 70, that'll fix that problem right up. I swear I read just a couple days ago about some 90 year old woman getting treated for breast cancer.. WHY?!?! We all gotta die sometime, just let it go or quit bitching a
A late comment (Score:2)
Seeing as how I'm posting this 7 days afterwards, I'm not expecting a lot of eyeballs on this comment, but I'll make it anyways...
Another thing that keeps those genes from being selected against is that most of the gene selection occurs during breeding age, based primarily on the characteristics of a person at that age. There aren't a lot of people who, in choosing a mate, use the health status of their grandparents as
Re:Put up and show it is "bullshit"? (Score:2)
Re:Put up and show it is "bullshit"? (Score:2)
Re:Put up and show it is "bullshit"? (Score:2)
This would be above and beyond the basic process where specific bonds grow stronger as you keep using them. The idea is that you don't want to lose an im
Re:Put up and show it is "bullshit"? (Score:2)
-> The author claims to be able to fix aging, but doesn't go into much detail how to do it. Theoretically it might be possible to to create wormholes and perhaps do time travel, that doesn't mean that it will ever work. One could probably move genes back into mitochondria, but will that mean living forever? Which brings me to the next point.
-> It is implied in the article that aging = cell damage and toxicity. The reader is expected to assume that as truth just like t
Most of that is discussed on the web site (Score:2)
Check the web site for details. He goes over what he claims are the damaging changes found -- and argues that there probably aren't that many more of those on the cell level, since they should be known by now.
I have done a bit of biochem courses for fun and can't see any obvious errors in the description.
There might be changes in the brain coming from age, of course. (The obvious answer would probably be that i
only one problem (Score:2, Interesting)
ofcourse, a lifespan of 1000 years can open doors to interstellar voyages...but still
overpopluation (Score:2, Funny)
Re:only one problem (Score:2)
As for developing countries, where overpopulation is a problem and will probably become worse in the next 50-100 years, do you really think they'll live for 1000 years, that this technology will be accessible t
Great. (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, human society will never be able to tolerate considerable anti-aging treatments until the general populace is accepting of birth control measures.
Re:Great. (Score:2)
How many times... (Score:4, Funny)
Sure we will... (Score:4, Insightful)
And we'll be driving our flying cars all the while.
Re:Sure we will... (Score:2)
Re:Sure we will... (Score:2)
People driving flying cars? I believe that would actually result in an inverse of the 1000 years life expectancy.
Got more to worry about than disease, Old Age (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Got more to worry about than disease, Old Age (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, you too have foreseen the murderous roboBus revolt of 2505!
The horror...
Re:Got more to worry about than disease, Old Age (Score:5, Insightful)
Another factor not to be discounted lightly is the risk of disabling injuries. I saw few if any grey heads working on the roof of my recently constructed house in the crew of about 8 or 9 guys out there. People tend to abandon risky occupations as they get older if they can, either they suffer physically disabling injuries themselves, or see enough of their friends get hurt that they decide to find a safer way to make a living. Even as lifespans have increased by the relatively modest amounts over the last 50 years or so, one of the biggest problems will be finding help to put new roofs on their houses, take down overgrown trees, etc.
If life spans increase 10 fold, the amount of dangerous work will not go down that much, but the pool of people willing to do that kind of work will diminish to nearly the vanishing point. If people live to be 1,000, occupations such as truck drivers, roofers, cops, and many of the construction trades will either be a death sentence, or something that most people will be unable to do for more than a few decades before being disabled or forced to seek safer employment. People may become too risk-averse for society to function.
exactly so (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, hot from the CDC we learn the following average death rates (in persons per 100,000 population per year) from causes that have nothing to do with old age:
Grand total, 66.9 per 100,000 per year. From which it follows that the average person has a 0.0669% chance of dying each year from some reason other than old age. The rough estimate of your life expectancy is then reasonably close to the inverse of this number, i.e. 1500 years.
Nice enough, but hardly forever. More troubling, however, is that these rates are for a population that is quite young. Suppose instead we use the results for old people, 85 and over, who are unfortunately far more susceptible to accidents and disease:
Grand total of 1462.8, which means your average 85-year-old has a 1.46% chance of dying each year from causes unrelated to chronic "old-age" diseases like heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. The inverse of this is 68 years, for a grand total lifespan of 153 years. Lots shorter. And wet get intermediate results if we use the results for other older age groups, but not the oldest.
Which is to say, you can only get a 1000-year lifespan if you not only defeat the usual diseases of old age (cancer, atherosclerosis, etc.) but also stop the clock on practically every consequence of aging from fading vision to slowing reflexes to slower healing to more brittle bones. A very tall order indeed.
Re:exactly so (Score:2)
Re:exactly so (Score:2)
For me and mine (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine a world where the vast majority of skilled people live effectively forever. What opportunity will there be for the young, if the elders have had a centuries-long head start?
How could we possibly provide the resources necessary to feed an effectively undying yet still growing population? Would famine become the determiner or longevity?
Can the human brain retain the sheer volume of information and experience achievable in a millenia of living? Would we forget the past, or become unable to learn the future?
Not all of the questions are negative, either. Would longer-lived decision makers take longer-term factors into account? Would humanity be more inclined to space travel if time were no longer the limiting factor?
Realistically, we do not have the capability as a civilization to cope with this sort of thing as we stand. Individuals could take advantage of it and live long, and believe me when I say that I'd be the first one in line, but to provide something of this magnitude to the masses would be suicidal.
Ideals aside, I would want this for myself, but not for my neighbors. Selfish, yes, but better some than all or none.
Of course, scientists have said as much before, and little has come of it, so it may be a moot point for centuries yet to come.
Bill & Walt Rejoice (Score:2)
Re:For me and mine (Score:1, Funny)
Re:For me and mine (Score:2)
Do not worry. The patent secured monopoly granted to the two or three companies who are actualy allowed to sell this product will ensure that this anti-ageing treatment will be far out of reach for all the commoners with less than a few billion dollars to spare.
On the upside, our grand-grand-grandchildren will still know what we were talking about when they unearth our slashdot postings wherein we t
Re:Cher Act? (Score:2)
The first valuable genomic patents will run out in about 45 years from now. I guess we will have to wait and see how this plays out, maybe politicians will be less dependent on corporate money by then
I jus
Re:For me and mine (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I'd be much happier if these people would work on a way for people to be healthy and capable (physically and mentally) up until 70 or 80, then still die. The 1000 year life span, besides being a nice round number, is about 10x our maximum current age. What's the point of outliving Methusaleh if the last several centuries are spent in a wheelchair (even if it is Luke Garner's flying one) ogling the cute, young, 300 year olds who sashay by and pat you on the head occasionally?
I cannot find the author, so insert someone suitably cynical, "all wish to live long, but none wishes to grow old". I think we should be working on improving the quality of our life, rather than extending it out of some fear of dying. Let's get cancer and heart-disease first, and deteriorating immune systems first, then worry about outliving Methuselah.
Re:For me and mine (Score:2)
Even in such a culture, overcrowding would be a serious problem; although I'm sure environmental stresses would serve to alter the state of our society until we think that breeding before one is one or two hundred years old is unseemly.
The research the article describes also indicates that cell
Re:For me and mine (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine a world where the vast majority of skilled people live effectively forever. What opportunity will there be for the young, if the elders have had a centuries-long head start?
Speaking from an economics standpoint, there will always be people who need things, they are called consumers. In order for consumers to acquire the things that they need, they must produce things that others need, etc... Perhaps one day there will be a small subset of humanity that can produce enough goods and services to s
Re:For me and mine (Score:2)
This is like saying there's no opportunity for a 5 year old because a 50 year old has a huge head start on experience. The answer, if we're all living to be 1000 years old, is that we'll be going to school for 120 years instead of 12 years. When you've got such an enormous lifespan, what's the rush to enter the workforce at ag
Short Term is the Bigger Problem (Score:2)
What happens when we discover the means to 120 years old when the Baby Boomers are 90? Who's paying for another 30 years of retirement for them? They didn't save enough. There aren't enough of us to pay their Social Security. Are we going to deny them the 30-year treatment? Are we going to take our parents into our homes like the Chinese do?
One solution is to let them die, through not paying for trea
Re:For me and mine (Score:2)
I'd love to see both longer lifespans and interplanetary space travel in my lifetime. Whether I will depends on, I suppose, how long I manage to live.
Great.. (Score:1, Interesting)
One of the nicest things about life is that it doesn't go on forever.
This is to say nothing of the sociopolitical consequences, such as state-mandated birth control, and their sociopolitical consequences.
Re:Great.. (Score:1)
Re:Great.. (Score:2)
If Quantum Immortality [wikipedia.org] is true, then you may not have a choice in the matter. It could be quite possible that it maybe impossible for you to die. Even if you do loose your memories and your physicial bodies is destroyed, chances are you will spontaneously exist somewhere else in this universe or another.
Try to think of it like this. You obviously are observing yourself currently existing (while reading this) so therefore your conciousness
Re:Great.. (Score:2)
As for eternal life. Eternity is a very long time. We are all flawed. Flawed creatures living for eternity could be a definition of "Hell".
Re:Great.. (Score:2)
Because you cannot nonexist unless you currently do not exist. Since you exist now, you will exist forever as something because you can't observe yourself not existing and it could be infinite time between you now and the next time of you being consciously being able to observe your own existence.
Can you conceptualize infinite time? No... Well neither can I. So that
Re:Great.. (Score:2)
Basically, you are saying that your consciousness might not be linked to the physical body and brain. However, we know that if the human brain is damaged, it irrecovably alters a persons character. If you die in this world, and your consciousness suddenly attached itself to another body/brain in another world/universe, you wouldn't be 'you' anymore. You wouldn't have any of the experience, memories, brain structure, etc which shaped your in
TV reference (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey, I can spot the 'Dead Like Me' reference in there :)
Re:TV reference (Score:2)
Ah, such an awesome show. Damn shame it got cancelled.
Hurrah (Score:1, Flamebait)
Imagine a 900 year old Strom Thurmond staring cabbage-like into space as our artificially stupid computerized Republican overlords tell him how to vote.
Wouldn't you just get bored after a while? (Score:1)
Cthulhu reference (Score:2, Interesting)
First a "Dead Like Me" reference, then a Cthulhu reference. "That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die."
Well, since death will die, I for one, welcome our OLD, many-angled, overlords.
Kill me (Score:2, Insightful)
aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat
I'm pretty sure it will be substituted by suicide.
smac is ever appropriate (Score:2)
cancer and the effect on the human mind? (Score:4, Interesting)
First is cancer. Cancer is caused by DNA damage which causes cells to begin dividing uncontrollably. Humans, over our mere 100 year lifespan, face a very high risk of dying from cancer. Over a thousand years, it becomes a virtual certainty that at least a handful of your cells would have a very harmful mutation. Unless we also have the technology to periodically "refresh" all the DNA in your body (hint: unlikely), the simple fact is that after a thousand years you would have developed every kind of cancer known to man. I don't believe any medical technology could keep one of us alive that long -- if and when humans manage to extend our lifespans to the thousand year range, we won't be doing it in our current bodies.
Second is psychology. The human mind did not evolve to last a thousand years, and asking it to operate so far outside of its design parameters is bound to have some surprising (and likely unpleasant) effects. In fact, I am very skeptical that anyone could even hold on to sanity for that length of time. We just aren't built for that kind of time scale. We obviously don't know the effects of a truly long life on the human mind, but I just can't imagine an ordinary human lasting for a thousand years without becoming seriously disturbed.
Re:cancer and the effect on the human mind? (Score:2)
design parameters? if we were designed along any particular parameteres (I'm not touching that arguement), we certainly can all agree that we don't know what those paramaters are. unless you think we were designed to live till 30, as was the style in ancient times, in which case a bit of insanity might not be so bad.
as to the time scale, I think we can adapt. it might take a generation or two, but we'd adapt to it. humans have gotten
Re:cancer and the effect on the human mind? (Score:2)
On the other hand if you don't have to worry about money, housing... basically survival - then you would probably be okay for a lot longer. This means no forced work, only work that you enjoy doing on a schedule that is comfortable. This means plentiful healthy food, a very
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Start small, cure cancer (Score:2)
Most likely because treating a symptom or an indicator does little to combat the root of the problem. It's the lifestyle or physiolgical conditions that lead to high cholesterol cause the problem. They haven't invented a pill that gets your fat ass up off
Re:Start small, cure cancer (Score:2)
Re:Start small, cure cancer (Score:2)
You are correct with this statement, but the problem goes deeper than that. There are commercial, psychological, and sociological issues which cause high cholesterol, and ultimately CVD as well.
Re:Start small, cure cancer (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes we can. Eat.
Seriously, hunger as you refer to it is not a disease but more of a political problem. Food and other resources are controled and dispatched in such a way that some people do not get any. But we're not lacking food and, again, hunger itself is not a disease.
Again, we're facing and finding solutions to symptoms. Often, we do not have to cure anything as if it's a natural reaction, it will go away. It's the people making the choice of being treated or taking this or that pill so as to not endure the pain while it lasts. And what disease are caused by natural bodily functions?
Re:Start small, cure cancer (Score:2)
We can't even cure hunger and this guy wants to talk about curing aging?
Hunger stopped being a scientific problem long ago. Hunger is a political and/or economic problem. Cancer is a different story. One of the biggest risk factors for cancer is simply age. The very old are far more likely to develop cancer. If this is a result of accumulated cellular damage, then curing aging would also be a major step towards preventing cancer in the first place.
Also the biggest cause of death (at least in the develo
Re: (Score:2)
What a Rosy Future (Score:2)
1. Murder
2. Suicide
3. Accident
What a wonderful world it would be!
Re:What a Rosy Future (Score:2)
C'mon, name one.
Cancer? No, not fun. Heart disease? Again, not fun. Ebola? Novelty aside, still not fun.
What about that one disease that makes you feel like you're shot full of heroin right before you die? Wait, no such thing.
I don't think people will really be complaining that all the good deaths have been gotten rid of. The biggest effect, I think, will be a sudden onset of safety paranoia. The building code
Re:What a Rosy Future (Score:2)
WTF? I'd say that an actual shot of heroin right before you die of a heroin overdose feels quite a fucking bit like that.
It's simple... (Score:2, Funny)
HEEEURK! bleaugh...
Re:It's simple... (Score:5, Funny)
ARTHUR: What?
MAYNARD: [reading] "HEEEURK! bleaugh..."
BEDEVERE: What is that?
MAYNARD: He must have died while typing it.
LAUNCELOT: Oh, come on!
MAYNARD: Well, that's what it says.
ARTHUR: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to type 'bleaugh'. He'd just say it!
MAYNARD: Well, that's what he posted!
GALAHAD: Perhaps he was dictating.
ARTHUR: Oh, shut up.
Just who is this man? (Score:2)
Can you guess what his real name is?
Knock, Knock! (Score:2)
Sounds so familiar, where have I heard that before? Oh that's right, Jehovah's Witnesses [wikipedia.org].
Great.... (Score:3, Funny)
That also means that they will be married to their "ball and chain" wives for 970 years. Have in-laws for that long too. And just how long will your slashdot reading, basement dwelling kids stay with you... gads...
But on the bright side, I fully expect to play Duke Nukem Forever....
Question Numba TWO (Score:2)
Who would want to?
In what STAGES would aging progress, would it just be slowed?
i.e. would I have to put up with 200 years of hip pain, drinking fiber every morning, etc...?
The questions! Oh! The QUESTIONS!
joke-remake (Score:2, Funny)
"Death will die" - Aubrey de Grey.
"Aubrey de Grey will die" - Death.
Netcraft confirms it. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdot Could Give any Crazy Credit! (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact is that Aubrey de Grey is a respected biologist (despite having a degree in computer science), and participates in many important conferences, according to what I've read. If you find information which contradicts this, please give me a link. In the meantime, perhaps you should check your facts better before posting such things.
Re:Slashdot Could Give any Crazy Credit! (Score:1, Flamebait)
Plenty of respected scientists are full of shit. Perhaps the article, which is the only linked information from the blurb and thus all we have, should have included some more factual evidence that this can all occur rather than just saying that because this guy says so, it is.
Starting off the article that he's a "prophet" and then continuing on with quotes like, "If that sounds a little vague, it is. Mr. de Grey is not s
Re:Slashdot Could Give any Crazy Credit! (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot Could Give any Crazy Credit! (Score:4, Insightful)
Is he crazy? Probably. Is he wrong? Probably. At least he's got a goal and is formulating a plan to achieve it. If he is wrong, science will probably learn a lot about how the human body works, and other scientific achievements will be made in the process.
By the way... these treatments will only really be available to the extremely wealthy. Considering how difficult it is for many Americans to get basic health insurance as it is, and the fact that most medical treatments are financially out of reach for those who are not covered, this will probably only exaccerbate the situation unless some great social or technological discovery is made which allows anyone who desires it access to this longevity. Is this evil? Not really. Denying something to a priveleged few people simply because the masses (of which I consider myself to be a member) can not achieve it isn't right. Denying this longevity because it causes an undue burden on the rest of society, however, is not morally outrageous.
Re:Slashdot Could Give any Crazy Credit! (Score:2)
Of course, that doesn't cover anyone without health care or the truly poor, but if this comes in at any kind of reasonable price, you'll see it be
Re:Slashdot Could Give any Crazy Credit! (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot Could Give any Crazy Credit! (Score:3, Insightful)
His major point (as I understand it) is that we don't necessarily have to know the WHYs of the body, as long as we know the WHATs and can correct them when they change. Watch what changes in the body over time (a
Re:Slashdot Could Give any Crazy Credit! (Score:2)
de Grey was not trained in experimental work and does not seem to appreciate the way the discovery process works. He has no doubts about what he is saying. But in science progress does do not happen just because you want it to. Ideas that "are a li
Re:Scientific Progress (Score:2)
careful (Score:2)
The life expectancy at birth has gone up quite a lot, yes. But that mean less that people are living a lot longer than that more people are living what we think of as a "normal" lifespan of 75 years or so. For example, here [cdc.gov] the CDC has some nice tables of historical life expectancy in the US by age. So, from 1900 to 2002 the US life expectancy at birth increased from 49 to 77 years. Impressive, no?
But the life expe