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Science

Ageing Process is Unstoppable, Finds Unprecedented Study (theguardian.com) 202

Immortality and everlasting youth are the stuff of myths, according to new research which may finally end the eternal debate about whether we can live for ever. From a report: Backed by governments, business, academics and investors in an industry worth $110bn -- and estimated to be worth $610bn by 2025 -- scientists have spent decades attempting to harness the power of genomics and artificial intelligence to find a way to prevent or even reverse ageing. But an unprecedented study has now confirmed that we probably cannot slow the rate at which we get older because of biological constraints. The study, by an international collaboration of scientists from 14 countries and including experts from the University of Oxford, set out to test the "invariant rate of ageing" hypothesis, which says that a species has a relatively fixed rate of ageing from adulthood.

"Our findings support the theory that, rather than slowing down death, more people are living much longer due to a reduction in mortality at younger ages," said Jose Manuel Aburto from Oxford's Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, who analysed age-specific birth and death data spanning centuries and continents. "We compared birth and death data from humans and non-human primates and found this general pattern of mortality was the same in all of them," said Aburto. "This suggests that biological, rather than environmental factors, ultimately control longevity. The statistics confirmed, individuals live longer as health and living conditions improve which leads to increasing longevity across an entire population. Nevertheless, a steep rise in death rates, as years advance into old age, is clear to see in all species."

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Ageing Process is Unstoppable, Finds Unprecedented Study

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  • by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @08:07PM (#61500302) Journal

    Gosh darn it! Guess we'll just have to start living every day like it mattered and start being nice to each other.

  • by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @08:10PM (#61500304) Journal
    Was someone under the impression that people were looking to halt or reverse aging merely by putting people in an optimal natural environment? Mice have had drastically extended natural lifespans in some studies which included artificial manipulation of biological processes.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      Extended lifespans does not mean immortality. That is what this puts to bed: the idea that extending lifespan is limitless. Now that does not mean sci-fi concepts like consciousness transfer and cloned bodies is impossible but that is the realm of science fiction not science.
      • by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @08:38PM (#61500354) Journal
        Most of modern science was once the realm of science fiction. Science fiction is just a process by which we explore hypotheses.
        • Most of modern science was once the realm of science fiction.

          But most it of was obviously within reason.

        • ...and don't forget that "modern science" has killed off more sci-fi ideas than it has confirmed.

          We're not travelling the stars, we probably never will. There's a tiny chance we might make it all the way to Mars but otherwise we're stuck here on a tiny blue dot.

          (and we're busy destroying that blue dot like there's no tomorrow...)

          • by alexgieg ( 948359 ) <alexgieg@gmail.com> on Saturday June 19, 2021 @06:11AM (#61501062) Homepage

            It has done no such thing. Traveling the stars is pretty possible, it just will going to be slower than we'd like if new Physics isn't discovered that allows it to go faster, but that's it.

            • By "new" physics you mean physics that contradicts known physics then yes. Eisenstein's model of gravity replaced Newton's not because Newton’s model did not work ever. Einstein showed how his model applied to more of the known universe by accounting for relativity.
          • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

            We're not travelling the stars, we probably never will. There's a tiny chance we might make it all the way to Mars but otherwise we're stuck here on a tiny blue dot.

            Very well then. Please produce the links to valid peer reviewed source that state we are not traveling to the stars. While your at it add a few that tell us that we can not travel to Mars.

            These links must be from accredited, peer reviews sources. Wikipedia articles and link to youtube videos probably will not count but as usual we will peer review your sources and determine what is valid and what isn't.

            Looking forward to your reply so we can finally put this space travel nonsense behind us.

        • Most of modern science was once the realm of science fiction.

          And within my own lifetime and memory. That is why I have no fear of the future.

      • How does it do that? There is nothing here putting to bed the idea that an ARTIFICIAL CHANGE to biological processes couldn't reverse aging and/or extend lifespan.
        • You should present your ideas to these scientists then. What is said here is that extending a body has limits given known practical science. Nanotechnology could produce machine that reverse the effects of aging; that is science fiction.
      • by NagrothAgain ( 4130865 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @09:30PM (#61500448)

        That is what this puts to bed: the idea that extending lifespan is limitless

        It does no such thing. The headline of this article is complete bullshit, and the linked abstract flat out says nothing is "put to bed." The study is just saying that improving living conditions doesnâ(TM)t extend lifespan, it merely prevents premature death.

        • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @10:19PM (#61500520)

          That is what this puts to bed: the idea that extending lifespan is limitless

          It does no such thing. The headline of this article is complete bullshit, and the linked abstract flat out says nothing is "put to bed." The study is just saying that improving living conditions doesnâ(TM)t extend lifespan, it merely prevents premature death.

          Of course. We can increase the average age of death by several methods. Lower child mortality, increase safety, artificially support people with drugs. Artificially support people with machinery.

          That's an average though. What we haven't done, is increase the limits. To do that, we need to deal with the natural tendency to degenerate, the HayFlick limit. Then we have to deal with some of the things that simply wear out, like the skeletal system. Ever see those folks at the very limits? Most are living a shell of a life, often bedridden, or they get propped up in a chair so the reporters can ask them what they did that allowed them to live so long.

          In the end, so many people, especially the young, are confusing length of life with quality of life.

          I for one, kind of look forward to the long dreamless sleep. Not now, but eventually when the pain gets too much.

          • by Junta ( 36770 )

            Today, that's what we can do and that's what happens.

            However, the study doesn't show that the ageing process cannot possibly be stopped. It's a lot of mathematical analysis of statistics of past occurrence, not some examination of biology. It suggests that any changes in our diet, in having shelter, climate control, less average working hours and less arduous work hasn't caused humans to age more slowly or quickly. They couldn't find anything that has already shown an effect on ageing so there's no histo

        • by twisteddk ( 201366 ) on Saturday June 19, 2021 @04:45AM (#61500942)

          I was about to say nearly the same thing....

          The study indicates nothing about the ability to extend life, it only conveys that natural life has a limit in all species, and better living conditions doesn't extend that limit, it just lets more people reach it.

          If we want to extend this limit "unnaturally", we can. But it would have to be using means that are not at natures disposal. Cellular regeneration technology, genetic manipulation and stem cell treatments are being researched which might eventually show some success with this.

          That said, I would not want to live forever, if my body would continue to decline. Any technology that only allows us to live longer, not better, would likely not make people WANT to live forever (recent studies show that the older people are, the less likely they are to want to live forever - So maybe there is a psychological or physiological component aswell)

          • by cstacy ( 534252 )

            The study indicates nothing about the ability to extend life,

            If we want to extend this limit "unnaturally", we can.

            "Is it possible to learn this power?"

            "Not from a statistician...."

      • Extending your life to a point where science can take over and carry you onto the singularity is immortality, or more precisely a theoretical path to immortality.

        Honestly if people want to believe in the singularity and immortality, I'm not going to convince them otherwise. It's no strange than the hundreds of other religions that promise immorality. And may indirectly result in a better scientific understanding of rare aging disorders and improve some lives, even if it doesn't help billionaires.

      • I think that's part of why the headline is so misleading and the journalist clearly doesn't understand the study. The result was not "unprecedented," it was expected.

        Personally, I absolutely believe that humans will eventually achieve "immortality" (of course, that doesn't mean infinite lives because there are constraints on the life of the planet, sun, and universe) but it probably won't happen in our lifetime.

        I don't know if people would accept consciousness transfer as an acceptable solution because that

        • by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @11:38PM (#61500626)
          The challenge with lengthening telomeres is only doing it in certain cells and not making them too long. Turns out just lengthening them indiscriminately results in lots and lots of cancer. https://blogs.scientificameric... [scientificamerican.com]
        • by Xenx ( 2211586 )

          The result was not "unprecedented," it was expected.

          They said the study was unprecedented, not the result. But, unprecedented doesn't really mean too much, as it just means never done(or known) before. You could argue that most studies, omitting ones done to verify another, would technically be unprecedented. It just sounds better than "new study."

        • extending telomeres using nanomachines is an engineering challenge

          We already know how to lengthen telomeres, we don't need to invent nanomachines because the body already provides a complex called telomerase. We even know how to force it active, if you look up cell lines you'll knows many of them are labelled TERT because someone has engineered in an extra copy of these gene.

          In nature the body runs this telemere lengthening program in stem cells and turns it off in terminally differentiated cells or when the cell is damaged in some way. The great mystery is really why an

      • If you want to transfer consciousness, you have to find it first.

        Good luck with that.

    • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @10:07PM (#61500506)

      Was someone under the impression that people were looking to halt or reverse aging merely by putting people in an optimal natural environment? Mice have had drastically extended natural lifespans in some studies which included artificial manipulation of biological processes.

      Someone? A hella lot of people are frantic about extending lifespan. There are people who are literaly semi starving themselves because of some dude's research on Mice. I know a lot of young people who believe that they are going to be the first immortal generation. And there are those who claim that if we can make it to 2050, we shall be immortal from then on. https://www.news.com.au/techno... [news.com.au]

      When in fact, we are not physically designed to live even as long as we live today. collagen/calcium phosphate is no material to make an immortal or even a multi hundred year human out of.

      We see the concept that somehow the young now are the first generation that will not die. People trying to extend the age of adulthood to 30 https://bigthink.com/mind-brai... [bigthink.com] P We see the virtual orders to modern women to delay childbearing until their fertility is declining - there are many who believe that women should not think about bearing children until their mid 40's, when they are a lot closer to expensive fertility treatments, and menopause than optimum childbearing age. Frankly, I find this long delayed adulthood thing rather disturbing on all fronts. These people will discover that they age and die just like the earlier generations.

      When in fact, all of our efforts have allowed more people to artificially live longer, but there has been no change on the lifespan limits. There are no 400, 300, or even 200 year old humans.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @08:10PM (#61500306) Journal

    well at least they're finally almost maybe sort of certain they think

    • well at least they're finally almost maybe sort of certain they think

      Backed by governments, business, academics and investors in an industry worth $110bn -- and estimated to be worth $610bn by 2025...

      According to Greed, they have another 500 billion to suck from gullible idiots before coming to any kind of no-shit-sherlock conclusion.

  • Overstated (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @08:11PM (#61500308) Journal

    So the study says "Our results support the invariant rate of ageing hypothesis, implying biological constraints on how much the human rate of ageing can be slowed."

    Far cry from "Ageing Process is Unstoppable, Finds Unprecedented Study". Sensationalism...

    • "Our results support the invariant rate of ageing hypothesis, implying biological constraints on how much the human rate of ageing can be slowed."

      Far cry from "Ageing Process is Unstoppable, Finds Unprecedented Study". Sensationalism...

      Indeed.

      "Ageing Process is Unstoppable, Finds Misconstrued Study"

  • this ends nothing (Score:5, Informative)

    by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @08:12PM (#61500310) Journal
    The only debate it might end is whether it is possible to live forever by some means found in nature. Frankly, I don't recall any debate about that. Assuming nothing happens to stop the progression of science, we will extend our lifespans beyond the natural. It is only a matter of time though that time could be years, decades, centuries, or millenia. The initial successes will likely involve controlling the signalling that triggers aging but at some point it would certainly extend to reengineering the genome.
    • Isn't "reengineering the genome" just another word for evolution? What do you think it's been doing all this time?

      • No. Though it could be seen as a component of the evolution process. It would replace the process by which variants are randomly created, but not the selection process.

        Reengineering the genome would of course be a competitive effort. Many people will have very different ideas as to what is correct. If we manage to escape our solar system, it is possible that we will diverge down many branches as a result of this. If not, the number of branches will be constrained by competition. Specializations might surviv

        • No. Though it could be seen as a component of the evolution process. It would replace the process by which variants are randomly created, but not the selection process.

          Reengineering the genome would of course be a competitive effort. Many people will have very different ideas as to what is correct. If we manage to escape our solar system, it is possible that we will diverge down many branches as a result of this. If not, the number of branches will be constrained by competition. Specializations might survive, but multiple generalizations would more likely clash till a winner is picked by evolution.

          Assuming you are aspiring to the plasma life idea, as an academic question, what do you think the skeletal structure of the millennial length lifespan people will be. Because Collagen and Calcium Phosphate are not up to the task, and osteoarthritis is not a genetic condition, and doesn't even cover the present slightly enhanced average age of death. A few other parts that really degenerate are the nervous system, the vagus nerve especially. These things aren't trivial. to mess with.

          Maybe we'll grow a lot

          • Instead of growing clones and doing brain transplants, I predict we'll conquer the tissue scarring issues preventing human regeneration and trigger regeneration of body parts in situ - eventually using carefully repaired stem cells instead of the aged ones. I don't see a need to make the existing parts last much longer. For organs, there may be some need to generate some things outside of the body and transplant them in, but in most cases it would seem better to grow new parts next to old ones before causin

            • Instead of growing clones and doing brain transplants, I predict we'll conquer the tissue scarring issues preventing human regeneration and trigger regeneration of body parts in situ - eventually using carefully repaired stem cells instead of the aged ones.

              One of the most ironic aspects of all this is say we do give ourselves a 1000 year lifespan. It will seem just as short as what we have now. Drive at 100 mph for a while, you get used to it. Fly in a jet at 500 MPH, and it looks like you're crawling. Even the ISS videos look like they are in slow motion if you aren't told the speed.

        • Specializations might survive, but multiple generalizations would more likely clash till a winner is picked by evolution.

          Evolution doesn't really "pick", until recently it has been bound by natural selection, though in our case selective selection may be more at play.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )

        Isn't "reengineering the genome" just another word for evolution?

        Only if you think evolution has a particular intention and design behind its direction.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      Or just restoring your own genome from a backup file.

  • Doesn't this just mean "nothing we've done seems to stop the aging process"? Duh? What about considerably extending lifespan? You can't know what a treatment today will do for possibly 100+ years, if it is something that has to be done nearly from birth.
  • Bullshit. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cfalcon ( 779563 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @08:30PM (#61500332)

    A dog ages much faster than a man.
    An elephant ages somewhat slower than a man.

    This is obviously a biological process that can be edited, sped up, or delayed.

    And if, preposterously, evolution has somehow crafted man to be the MOST long lived creature (within our shape- perhaps the other creatures that live longer than us have properties we cannot adopt, such as cold bloodedness, or a very slow heartbeat)- then, even THEN, there's the obvious direct intervention, wherein cells could be edited to be younger, and even spread whatever is needed to behave in a young way to other cells.

    No, I'm sure that this study, and whomever published it, won't help on this axis. But that doesn't mean that there is no help on this axis, or that things are impossible. We KNOW, with absolute CERTAINTY, that they are not, because we KNOW, with absolute CERTAINTY that this is ultimately a physics and/or engineering problem AND NO OTHER THING... which should be good enough.

  • n/t
  • by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@nOSpam.keirstead.org> on Friday June 18, 2021 @09:00PM (#61500386)

    This is like saying "we did a study that shows that nowhere in nature does an animal fly higher than 37,000 feet. Therefore it is impossible for humans to fly any higher than that. Also, space flight is therefore impossible.

    • No, since they're talking about what the body alone can do. Are you going to claim humans with leg muscles alone will someday jump three meters straight up from a solid surface?

      Hint, they can't and never will.

      No surprise lifespan of a primate can't be lengthened, no human is going to live 130 years.

      • by NagrothAgain ( 4130865 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @09:40PM (#61500468)
        Using your jumping analogy, the study says "there's a biological maximum height a human could jump. Working out does not have infinite returns." The media headlines take that statement and say "Study claims flight is impossible."
        • You're still being silly, the human body is incapable of flight just as it can't even jump 2 meters. The human body alone can never fly, it is correct to conclude it can't and won't.

      • Are you going to claim humans with leg muscles alone will someday jump three meters straight up from a solid surface?

        Hint, they can't and never will.

        Ok, please try not interrupting [goodreads.com] people trying to do it.

        Some might have done it on the Moon or in denser "air". Some might be able to do it on Earth and atmospheric pressure - given some help in genetics, training, nutrition, or something else.

        • No, it is an impossibility for the human anatomy to jump up 3 meters from the ground. The absolute limit is less than 2 meters for hard scientific reasons. No amount of training or nutrition can change that. If you want to talk about genetic engineering, then we are talking about something not human.

          • No, it will depend on the exact generic change, and the definition of "human" at the time. There is some variation in the genetics of the existing 7 or i billion humans, all are called "humans". If the amount of genetic change required for 3 meters jump is within that range, it will be unreasonable to define them as non-humans. But unreasonability is of course not ruled out.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You do not understand Science. The usual limitations do of course apply, even if you are unable to see them. The main one is "Barring extraordinary discoveries...". Bit the thing is that extraordinary discovery are rare and have gotten exceptionally rare the better our understanding of physical reality has gotten.

      • If you look at the post's title, I think it makes it clear he's criticizing the headline, not the study. He did lose this clarity when he said, "we did a study. . .," but I give him the benefit of the doubt. As I interpreted his post, I fully agree: journalist takes a mundane study and finds a way to mischaracterize it to create a sensationalist headline.

        Unfortunately, it worked. It's here on /. and it was in my Apple News feed. I'm sure in the next couple days someone will say to me, "did you hear about th

  • only 33% of people in some small study would even want to be immortal. What's the problem? We have too many fucking people already.

    • We have too many fucking people already.

      And the problem is exactly those fucking* people [youtu.be].

      * not referring to India, but to people in general making too many babies.**

      ** Remember when we didn't have to put such disclaimers on jokes?***

      *** Pepperidge Farm Remembers.

    • I bet that most people, if given a choice, would choose to live longer than a typical human lifespan. Most people just don't want to be a 130 year old vegetable.

  • Just accept it and deal with it. Also stop wasting your time and money on those that claim to have "solutions", from the religious fuckups ("you are going to die but if you give us enough money and bow to our stupid rituals, it will be ok") to the corpse freezers and uploaders that are in no way any better. Also accept that nobody knows what happens after you die, despite a lot of assholes claiming they do. On the plus side, you cannot actually fail at it, everybody has managed to do it so far. So really, n

  • Genisis 6:3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. It might have been around a few years and widely distributed in most parts of the world. /s I'm not saying its useless to do scientific study to verify what our ancestors believed without the benefit of scientific investigation, but don't call it unprecedented!
  • by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @09:49PM (#61500488)

    What about all the research being done on telomeres, such as this one? [stanford.edu] Are the rich elite trying to cover up the truth so only they can be immortal?

    The article states "The procedure, which involves the use of a modified type of RNA..." - we've had a lot of progress in the last year with mRNA development, maybe they really found the fountain of youth and are now trying to suppress it from the public?

    Trust no o{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER

    • Holy shit. I read your joke, and then I read the very next post. The guy below you said pretty much the same thing but he wasn't joking.

  • That honestly this headline has me thinking the exact opposite.
    "They've finally solved it, but they can't tell the common populace"

    It's very much in the best interest of the elites to ONLY have a small fraction of people living forever. If anything they need to be rid of 95% of us to have the planet, maybe, maybe survive.

  • Few other species, though, exhibit humanity's rather extreme attitude towards injury and disability. Lose a limb? We can bolt on a mechanical replacement. Heart won't beat regularly? We can install a device to force it to beat regularly. Damage or destroy a vital organ? We can cut one out of a corpse and use it as a replacement. Or not even a corpse, sometimes we take them from willing living donors. Problem's caused by a genetic error? We figured out how to create a virus that basically replaces the errone

    • by mark-t ( 151149 )

      "Few" species?

      You know of another one on this planet that does shit like that?

      I mean, "few" technically only means "not many", but typically implies more than one,.

      • Well other early hominid species show evidence of various medical treatments, like setting broken bones, primitive dentistry, and chewing willow bark for pain relief (aspirin). And using plants for their medical properties has been observed in a wide variety of current species. Orangutans even chew up a plant with anti-inflammatory properties (which isn't part of their regular diet) then use the foam produced as a topical pain reliever. Humans in the area use the plant for the same purpose.
        • by mark-t ( 151149 )
          That's pretty far removed from the other examples given of attaching a mechanical replacement for a lost limb, creating a device that forces the heart to beat regularly, organ transplants, or making genetic tweaks.
  • I'm hoping for a long long life, but I could see how at some point, enough would be enough.

    I mean, I love life, but like good bourbon, which I also love, there's a point at which you've had your fill.

  • David Sinclair has shown this in his experiments and several experiments have confirmed his findings
    • by mark-t ( 151149 )
      Reversing isn't stopping though, is it?
    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      Despite the headline, and even a couple of similarly suggestive sentences in the study, the study is simply an in depth analysis of statistics of large historical populations. It shows that nothing has previously been experienced by a statistically significant population of the large number of primate species, including humans, that has affected ageing. It really says nothing about what we might be able to find in the future, it simply suggests we won't find some magical natural diet that slows ageing, or

  • by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @11:07PM (#61500578) Homepage

    Another case of some journalist writing a headline to attract attention. The actual study found that aging was determined by biology not environment. That is, changing your diet and exercise does not slow aging. Sorry, vegans still die of old age. Most of it centered on studying populations, not studying specific factors.

    This clearly left open the scientific methods of slowing aging that we are still researching. Specifically telomerase, stem cell, and cloning techniques are excluded by this study.

    Personally I fully expect that I will die the day before they announce scientific de-aging. Maybe even when they announce it, but before it becomes available.

  • https://vimeo.com/428290728 [vimeo.com] JG: "I'm not going to die!" AC: "You mean never?" JG: "I don't mean never."
  • by GigaplexNZ ( 1233886 ) on Friday June 18, 2021 @11:45PM (#61500638)

    "We compared birth and death data from humans and non-human primates and found this general pattern of mortality was the same in all of them," said Aburto. "This suggests that biological, rather than environmental factors, ultimately control longevity."

    Statistical analysis on the current situation doesn't prove that it's impossible to manipulate the biological factors. 500 years ago, nobody was flying in the air, so a comparable study would have proven that we'd never fly.

  • Lets face if you figure out how to live a long time do you really want low quality immortals? By low quality of course I'm talking about the poors. You wouldn't want poor people screwing up your world now would you.
  • After years of personal research and a very modest budget I have concluded that humans will never be able to fly as they lack the anatomy to have wings. Sure you might cheat with jet packs or gliders but that doesn't matter for this clickbait comment.
  • From the actual paper:

    As we show here, improvements in the environment are unlikely to translate into a substantial reduction in the rate of ageing, b1, or in the dramatic increase in lifespan that would result from such a change. It remains to be seen if future advances in medicine can overcome the biological constraints that we have identified here, and achieve what evolution has not.

    So the researchers do understand what they are doing. But the news reporters distort things to the point of stupidity.

  • The study suggests that environmental effects don't affect longevity that much. That doesn't mean ageing is "unstoppable". What about specific pharmacological or even genetic (CRISPR) manipulation of the ageing process - maybe not possible and maybe not even desirable, but quite a few people are working on it. When you get to a certain age (as I did quite a while ago) it becomes abundantly clear this ageing business isn't just a question of the body wearing out, it is programmed disintegration, something

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