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Medicine

Silicon Valley's Quest To Extend Life 'Well Beyond 120' 273

Posted by Soulskill from the go-big-or-go-home dept.
HughPickens.com writes: The Guardian has an interesting article on the current quest sweeping Silicon Valley to disrupt death, and the $1 million prize challenging scientists to push human lifespan past its apparent maximum of about 120 years. Hedge Fund Manager Joon Yun's Palo Alto Longevity Prize, which 15 scientific teams have so far entered, will be awarded in the first instance for restoring vitality and extending lifespan in mice by 50%.

"Billionaires and companies are bullish about what they can achieve. In September 2013 Google announced the creation of Calico, short for the California Life Company. Its mission is to reverse engineer the biology that controls lifespan and "devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives." ... In April 2014 it recruited Cynthia Kenyon, a scientist acclaimed for work that included genetically engineering roundworms to live up to six times longer than normal, and who has spoken of dreaming of applying her discoveries to people.

Why might tech zillionaires choose to fund life extension research? Three reasons reckons Patrick McCray, a historian of modern technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. First, if you had that much money wouldn't you want to live longer to enjoy it? Then there is money to be made in them there hills. But last, and what he thinks is the heart of the matter, is ideology. If your business and social world is oriented around the premise of "disruptive technologies", what could be more disruptive than slowing down or "defeating" aging?
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Silicon Valley's Quest To Extend Life 'Well Beyond 120' More

Silicon Valley's Quest To Extend Life 'Well Beyond 120'

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  • Yet another buzzword! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aglider ( 2435074 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @02:16AM (#48800463) Homepage
    How? Why? Who?

  • $1 million? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bluegutang ( 2814641 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @02:23AM (#48800489)

    So many billionaires in Silly Valley, and none of them is willing to invest more than $1 million in extending their lifetime to forever?
    Clearly they don't expect much to come out of this research.

    • Re:$1 million? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @02:34AM (#48800521)

      As usual, they're expecting a bunch of people to invest the money for them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      oh they're putting more than 1 million.. it's just that these particular charlatans managed to only find 1 million for this prize - which is meaningless anyways considering the worth of the invention would be much more.

      but 1 million is small enough that they'll get new age charlatans up the wazoos trying to claim it with all kinds of diets and other shit. never mind that proving it working obviously takes quite a lot of time, so I suppose the prize might be claimable if you just make some worms live 12x t

    • If they are willing to put a million dollars that probably means they think there is a high chance for it to happen.

      But I see this as Silicon Valley arrogance. If we apply software developers insensentives to any problem we can get it solved.

  • The longer you live...Cancer could be your reward. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Trax3001BBS ( 2368736 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @02:30AM (#48800503) Homepage Journal

    I've posted this in another post, and yet again.

    A certain irreducible background incidence of cancer is to be expected regardless of circumstances: mutations can never be absolutely avoided, because they are an inescapable consequence of fundamental limitations on the accuracy of DNA replication, as discussed in Chapter 5. If a human could live long enough, it is inevitable that at least one of his or her cells would eventually accumulate a set of mutations sufficient for cancer to develop. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bo... [nih.gov]

    • Re:The longer you live...Cancer could be your rewa (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ixokai ( 443555 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @02:44AM (#48800563)

      Its true that cancer is an almost inevitable consequence of simply living, and the longer you live the more likely you'll have it -- but many cancers are treatable, depending on the particulars of the strain. You think these people aren't prepared to pay top dollar for the best treatments when/if the time comes that their longevity has a consequence?

    • Re:The longer you live...Cancer could be your rewa (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Xest ( 935314 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @03:44AM (#48800737)

      And why do you feel that defeating cancer isn't already part of the research into helping us live longer?

      You can make the same argument about all of it, the longer you live the more likely you are to catch any deadly disease. The longer you live the more likely your heart is to give in. The longer you live the more likely you are to suffer a stroke. The longer you live the more likely you are to go deaf and lose your vision.

      Cancer is no different, increasing age increases the chance of suffering all these things. Part of living older is defeating or delaying each and every one of these possible threats. What makes you think that cancer is somehow a distinctly different problem on the way to the same goal as the rest of it that means that it should be singled out and held up as a possible problem of increasing age more than anything else?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by javilon ( 99157 )

        Agreed,

        And even if completely defeating cancer is not possible or achieved quickly (progress in partially defeating cancer is business as usual), the set of technologies they are seeking would allow us to live healthier, longer and more productive lifes until the cancer (or whatever) takes us away. This would be a huge deal for anyone.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rashdot ( 845549 )

          Someone will create expensive cancer detecting nanobots for that. These will roam your body and either eliminate any cancer and other threats before they get out of hand, and/or alert an also very expensive monitoring system. Constant monitoring is needed for detecting and replenishing failed nanobots.

          Key word is 'expensive'.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rei ( 128717 )

            The day we've won isn't the day when we find a perfect way to kill cancer cells. The day we've won is the day where we find a perfect way to revert cancer cells to normal behavior.

            • why bother? if you can kill the cancer cells and make way for non cancerous growth, why bother 'reforming' them? besides, don't many cancers present as abnormally fast growing tissues? Do you want those cells around, in any form?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Rei ( 128717 )

                Part of normal cell behavior is to die off when an area is too crowded. Your worst case of a "reform" scenario is the best case of a "kill" scenario.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by u38cg ( 607297 )
      Or indeed any process which carries a relatively constant risk, accident being the most obvious. Personally, I can't wait for the headline "121 billionaire breaks neck skiing".
    • I assume that, if they've considered it at all, the plan is 'an immune system indistinguishable from magic; also no nasty autoimmune diseases.'

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ihlosi ( 895663 )
      A certain irreducible background incidence of cancer is to be expected regardless of circumstances: mutations can never be absolutely avoided, because they are an inescapable consequence of fundamental limitations on the accuracy of DNA replication,

      Fundamentally, it's an inesacpable consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. However, this consequence can be avoided if you keep throwing energy at the system.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tmosley ( 996283 )
        I guess the second law doesn't apply to naked mole rats. Maybe someone should see if we can make a perpetual motion machine out of them? Or maybe we should learn a little more about thermodynamics before citing them in ways that don't make any sense at all (people who don't age still eat).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by khallow ( 566160 )

          (people who don't age still eat).

          Hence, the use of the phrase "keep throwing energy at the system".

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tmosley ( 996283 )
            A weakness of neural nets is that they often bypass hard work (like reading the entirety of a post) by pattern recognition (reading just the first part and assuming the rest of the post is equally inane, rather than cleverly contradictory).

            I need an upgrade. Sigh...

      • Re:The longer you live...Cancer could be your rewa (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @07:50AM (#48801547) Homepage

        Fundamentally, it's an inesacpable consequence of the second law of thermodynamics.

        So cancerous mutations represent a measurable delta-S that normal cellular processes do not? Do please, tell me more!

        It's funny all of the things people try to credit to the second law of thermodynamics that aren't even talking about thermodynamics, as if you can user-define "disorder" any way you wish ("cancer sounds disordrous... so let's say that the second law of thermodynamics means cancer will occur!"). No, the only thing in that regard that's an inescapable consequence of the second law of thermodynamics is that at least some day all humans will be dead, as the universe will have died of heat death.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by khallow ( 566160 )

          So cancerous mutations represent a measurable delta-S that normal cellular processes do not?

          Yes, it's not magic. There are more states that lead to broken cellular processes than there are states that lead to normal cellular process. That leads to a measurable delta-S.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Rei ( 128717 )

            Sorry, but thermodynamics is not about how many states there are in any arbitrary system. There's countless states in which you can win money in a casino and only a few (such as paying for chips or inserting money into a slot machine) that they take yours - does this mean that the second law of thermodynamics guarantees that you're going to beat the house? Is winning at the casino an increase in entropy?

            Please stop taking scientific terms and making up your own definitions for them. The second law of thermo

    • Cancer may not have to be the cause of death, but rather the cause of immortality.

      Perhaps they can harness the same thing that keeps HeLa cells [wikipedia.org] immortal - sort of a body-wide 'cancer' that makes you immortal?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tmosley ( 996283 )
      Cancer isn't random. If it were, incidence would be spread throughout the life rather than being concentrated in the later years of life.

      Far more likely (IMO) that cancer is a side effect of aging. We have merely reduced mortality from other diseases (including some other age related disease), which has left more people getting cancer.

      I kinda doubt that telomeres are the key to aging. Rather, I think they are strictly a method for preventing cancer. Instead, I think that something is happening to c

      • I kinda doubt that telomeres are the key to aging. Rather, I think they are strictly a method for preventing cancer. Instead, I think that something is happening to cause a decline in the number of stem cells in the body as you get older, likely something to do with NAD.

        As unscientifically as possible and no cite to really get your questions going (but I'd search /.):

        There is (call it a rod) in each cell, each time the cell divides this rod loses a bit of length.

        Say this rod is half the size it started at, then you are at half of your life (age).

        If this rod shorting can be stopped a longer life should be a result.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tmosley ( 996283 )
          But some cell rods don't shorten when they divide, namely stem cells and germ cells.

          I would use the analogy that lengthening telomeres is to preventing aging the way building taller buildings is to lifespan of jumpers. Better to just stop people from jumping in the first place.

  • Telemeres (Score:3)

    by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @02:32AM (#48800513)
    Telemeres - for now they look like imposing a pretty hard upper limit.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Sardaukar86 ( 850333 )

      Telemeres - for now they look like imposing a pretty hard upper limit.

      I pray to electronic Jebus you're right. I couldn't stand the idea of Paris Hilton or Brittany fucking Spears living another hundred years or so.

      • Both of those critters could be accurately depicted using CGI and at least for Brittany, her 'music' could be closely approximated by an Autotune processing a fifth grade choir.

        So, best pray to your dear and fluffy lord that nobody thinks there is any money in those ventures.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DavenH ( 1065780 )
      Not true - the shortening of telomeres can be controlled epigenetically with the telomerase enzyme.

      • Re:Ref:Telomerase (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @03:47AM (#48800749)
        Yes, take a look at that page and consider what Blackburn got a Nobel for then get back to me. It's not a reset button.

        • What about this article in Nature which directly contradicts your snide presumption?
          http://www.nature.com/news/201... [nature.com]

          Given how we don't really understand if coffee and eggs are good or bad for us, and every month it seems to switch, it seems more than a little arrogant to condescend to someone who is basing their opinion on alternate though legitimate scientific theory.

          Also, considering your GP post about telemeres, he was just asserting that the reduction of the telemere by DNA transcriptase can be reverse

          • Note the article linked says "slows" and not halt or reverse. Not a reset button, or even a pause button.

            Also, why do you consider "for now they look like" and "consider X then get back to me" as "posting like an asshole"? I'm not pretending to have the absolute answer like someone rubbing a link in my face as if I've never read it.

            • Not aging as a whole, but the effect of the telemeres on aging was reversed in mice with premature aging diseases. Telomerase can reverse the shortening of the telemeres, that's what the enzyme does, just like DNA transcriptase pops off a bit of the telemere each time it copies it. It does not stop or reset aging, but combined with other therapies may be part of a treatment which does.

              The telemeres themselves are only one component, in a very complex system, but it's not an intractible problem like you seem

    • Henrietta Lacks appears to be kicking Telomeres right in their pessimistic helices these days... By mass, she's livelier than ever.

      Of course, I'm guessing that that isn't precisely what these guys had in mind.

  • May they find greatly-lengthened and considerable technologically-amplified pleasure in their lives while the remaining 99% of us scratch and grub for the barest minimum to achieve survival in this brave new world of post-scarcity possibilities.

    I wish nothing but the best possible outcome for our obvious betters, those for whom life's problems amount to the tyrannical difficulty of deciding between thirteen hundred cases of Krug Clos d'Ambonnay or Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Ermitage Cuvee Cathelin when cateri

    • Re:How very nice for them. (Score:4, Informative)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @02:51AM (#48800587) Homepage Journal

      I don't know about you..

      but one of the greatest things about the modern age is the considerable technlogically amplified pleasure(entertainment, learning, naked pics) that are available to everyone even if you're a slob working for 5 bucks a day in Asia.

      and hey, cheap sparkling wine ain't so bad either... the difference between having money today and 130 years ago is pretty big. if you didn't have big money then you had no chance of tasting sparkling wine.. even the cheap kind. or communicating on some online forum for that matter. think about it this way, no matter how much money you have your nethack or slashdot experience will be exactly the same.

      • Re:How very nice for them. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sardaukar86 ( 850333 ) <cam@tod a y stlc.com> on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @03:09AM (#48800639) Homepage

        I don't know about you..

        but one of the greatest things about the modern age is the considerable technlogically amplified pleasure(entertainment, learning, naked pics) that are available to everyone even if you're a slob working for 5 bucks a day in Asia.

        A fair comment, I agree completely, and to be clear, I don't expect 100% leisure time or an age of work-less abundance. I'd just like to see everyone (myself included) continue to have a right to continue to earn a living. However the greed of the top percentage of our society will ensure this childish, fanciful and ridiculous dream of mine is unsustainable for the myself and most of our society. Western civilisation as we know it is returning on its unstoppable orbit, ultimately terminating in the embrace of serfdom. The Black Death was the only thing that allowed us to escape last time and then only at enormous cost.

        Remember, as a '1-percenter' it's less about ensuring one wins, as that's already well-assured dear boy. More important is that everyone else loses! That's where the joy and the true victory lies!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khallow ( 566160 )
      You sound like a one percenter, minus the assets. Maybe you could do something with your life instead of caring what Kim does.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tmosley ( 996283 )
      Yeah, because you know those bastards made the internet and computers and such and just kept it all for themselves. The bastards!

  • The answer was in front of our faces. (Score:5, Funny)

    by C18H27NO3 ( 1282172 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @02:58AM (#48800609)
    Mix the blood of Keith Richards and Abe Vigoda and you're on your way to developing immortality.

    Where do I claim my million dollars?

    • Re:The answer was in front of our faces. (Score:4, Funny)

      by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @03:10AM (#48800647)
      A simpler answer would be to simply copyright death.

      With copyright infringement being so incredibly dangerous, no-one would think of dying whilst its still in copyright. All we would need are harsher copyright laws.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bosef1 ( 208943 )

      And doesn't Keith Richards have his blood replaced every three years or so? So there should be a lot of used blood around anyway for... testing. Yeah, testing, that's what I'll call it...

      I should want to cook Keith a simple meal, but I shouldn't want to cut into him, to wear the blood, to be born unto new worlds where his blood becomes my key...

      I'll be in my bunk.

  • Emotional investment (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @03:06AM (#48800625)
    I find that many people claiming aging is absolutely inevitable are suffering from a case of sour grapes. SENS [sens.org] is a very real, very realizable goal. The human body is of limited complexity and we're putting the pieces of the puzzle [wnyc.org] together fast. Skepticism is understandable, after all people have been promising cures for aging ever since the emperor of China ate mercury. But recent advances show real promise [typepad.com] and are based on real research.

    It's popular to say one wishes for death at an arbitrary age... until one is that age and it's time to try to live or try to die. The upshot of recent news [youtube.com]is there's a very real chance that the first person to reach escape velocity [wikipedia.org] is already alive. Here's to hope for a prosperous and very long life for each of us.

    • Here's to hope for a prosperous and very long life for each of us.

      Your overall premise is absolutely correct from my point of view. The Human body is a technology - we'll figure it out eventually, given time.

      The so-called Deep Learning [youtube.com] phenomenon that appears to be snaking across the world may very well yield considerable insight, especially as we collectively come to terms with the 'big data' stuff

      I must admit (and apologise) that I've been a bit angry in my last couple of posts. I'm really very concerned that this technology will have a terribly divisive effect, acceler

  • Found something you can't buy? (Score:3)

    by thetoadwarrior ( 1268702 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @03:10AM (#48800649) Homepage
    A collection of obscenely wealthy guys are upset that life won't let them get their way. Maybe if they at least admit they're scared shitless about it they can get their way.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Corbets ( 169101 )

      A collection of obscenely wealthy guys are upset that life won't let them get their way. Maybe if they at least admit they're scared shitless about it they can get their way.

      Or a collection of obscenely wealthy guys make a low-cost (to them) investment with a potential return of increased longevity. You have no insight into their motivations, and your post sounds petty.

      • The "anybody who wants to prevent/stave off death is just 'scared shitless' " meme is one I've seen before from a wide range of sources, and I can't for the life of me understand how so many people can be so stupid. Fighting death is the logical thing to do, the *obvious* thing to do, whether you're rich or poor. Fighting death has given us life expectancies better than any other point in history. It has given us medical advances that seemed impossible just a few decades ago. It has improved quality of life across all ages. It has vastly reduced infant and childhood mortality.

        It doesn't even seem to make sense as a religious objection. Biblical characters had vastly longer lifespans than we do - the concept of "Methuselah" as relating to longevity is fairly common, yet Methuselah's lifespan was merely the longest, rather than being exceptionally long compared to others of the same generation and lineage - and while some people are focused on ending death entirely (via things like brain uploading or cryopreservation with later revival), that doesn't apply to this project. It's not exclusive to the rich; rejuvenation and clinical immortality memes have been widespread in science fiction for decades, and most SF authors aren't exactly Scrooge McDuck. It is most common in the developed world (in many third-world nations, the fact that life expectancy can be higher is completely obvious, as their developed neighbors demonstrate) but certainly isn't exclusive to California.

        The "found something you can't buy?" meme is also a stupid one. The vast majority of things people can imagine today - never mind things we'll be able to imagine in the future - are things you can't buy. People work constantly to bring new things to market. Prior to Tesla Motors, you couldn't buy a pure-electric car with a multi-hundred-mile range. Prior to Iridium, you couldn't buy a telephone usable anywhere in the world. Prior to the medical development of penicillin, you couldn't buy a cure for most bacterial infections. Prior to... you get the idea. Technology marches on. Today, you can't buy a life expectancy of 100, but that's no reason to avoid working on it!

  • followed by (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @03:24AM (#48800687)

    Silicon Valley's Quest To Extend Life 'Well Beyond 120

    followed by the government's quest to extend the pension age well beyond 115

  • Really? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 )

    I'm 40 and I'm ready to check out. DNR, etc.

    I've seen it all and can't build up much of an excitement for anything. I can't imagine that my Dad is 90 and my Mom 86 and they're both not showing signs of going anytime soon.

    Just my luck to be stuck with depression *and* longevity. I keep telling people that I'm 25 years away from my best years in the past, but I don't think I can last another 25 just to live through the decay of everything I used to enjoy.

    These idiots better work on getting rid of aging, not j

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      You are suffering from depression. Go see your doctor.

    • You haven't seen it all. Many people live 80 or 90 years and will tell you that they haven't come close to seeing or experiencing everything there is to life.

      Your "can't build up much of an excitement for anything" is a textbook symptom of clinical depression, which is a treatable medical condition.

      And even among non-depressed people, middle age very often corresponds to a dip in happiness [theatlantic.com] which passes on its own as people get older.

    • More ideas here in my proposal on health sensemaking: https://www.newschallenge.org/... [newschallenge.org]
      "We want to improve public health through free and open source public intelligence tools for individual and collective sensemaking about health topics -- especially related to nutrition and lifestyle choices."

      Wish some billionaires wold fund that. :-)

      Good fats are important for health and good brain function as your brain is mostly fat ("fat makes you fat" is BS; it's more that refined carbs and sugars makes you fat). Goo

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @04:17AM (#48800833)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Wow, she was also an aunt of my father! Small world! :-) I think we might have commented on slashdot on that coincidence a few years back? But you'd have to be pretty old if she was your aunt, as opposed to, like me, a great aunt? I met her once with my father when she was still in her own home, and maybe incidentally another time or two perhaps (decades ago).

      Glad that "open sourcing" runs in the family. :-) Although I might feel differently about open sourcing my body or DNA than open sourcing some softwar

  • If the biology that controls lifespan is reversed, (Score:3)

    by Ihlosi ( 895663 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @06:16AM (#48801201)
    If the biology that controls lifespan is reversed, the condition is usually called "cancer". Limiting the number of cell divisions is one of the main safeguards against this disease.

    Suggestion: Develop an inexpensive and effective cure for cancer first.

    • Develop an inexpensive and effective cure for cancer first.

      Oh, of course! Why didn't we think of that sooner? We'll just whip that up and call you in the morning.

  • Some rich people. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Truekaiser ( 724672 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @07:44AM (#48801521)

    Seem to be panicking upon realizing that aging and mortality are the great equalizers.
    I see such things as the greatest form of selfishness, it wasn't enough they hoarded resources from people in their own generation. They want to continue to do so to their children.

  • I don't care how rich you are, death will still claim you.

    The ultimate equalizer is a bitch, ain't it?

  • Why might tech zillionaires choose to fund life extension research? ... First, if you had that much money wouldn't you want to live longer to enjoy it?

    Or one could ask if, perhaps, they have more than enough for one lifetime and concentrate on other things.

  • midlife crisis (Score:4, Insightful)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @10:33AM (#48802857)
    All these nerds turning 40+ and thinking about their mortality.
  • There are 2 obvious areas to really explore, DNA Repairing, and Memory Downloading; both would be very useful.

    I cannot help but wonder if Edger Allen Poe had a poem for Robber Barons.
  • By puberty you are 80% through your "Hayflick" limit of cell divisions. Then it may be too late to do much. (Hayflick observed that most animal cells had a characterist of limit of cells divsions before the cell line died. Each animal class and tissue had differing limits.)
  • You could tell me that you have a pill I can swallow that will let me keep living a thousand years, but if it means I'm still going to get decrepit and still going to experience a steadily declining overall quality of life? Then I tell you 'no thanks'. If I can't be at least as strong and active as I am right now, then what's the point? If I'm going to steadily go blind, or become frail and weak, or worst of all: My mind is going to go, I forget who I am, everything, and everyone I know, and have to have at

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