Engineering An End to Aging

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Posted by timothy on Wednesday June 2, 2004 @04:19AM from the bullets-stop-aging dept.

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

17 of 986 comments (clear)

some one has to say (do) it. by mpost4 · 2004-06-02 04:20 · Score: 5, Funny

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

http://hhgproject.org/entries/wowbagger.html
1. Re:some one has to say (do) it. by vsprintf · 2004-06-02 12:36 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  If i lived forever I would get board
  
  but would you learn to spell?
  
  C'mon, if you gonna do it, do it right: but wood you learn to spell if you were board?
2. Re:some one has to say (do) it. by fyngyrz · 2004-06-02 12:51 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  When someone gets up on a plank like this, it really goes against my grain. Same old saw, time after time. It lacks polish, not to mention finish. I mean, branch out a little, why don't you? If you're going to stump for puns, don't just seed one and hope someone will twig to it... get right in there and employ a little graft. Really, it's as easy as falling off a log.
  In Soviet Russia, YOU are the Knothead!
  
  --
  I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I am just afraid... by stankulp · 2004-06-02 04:20 · Score: 4, Funny

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

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We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
1. Re:I am just afraid... by stratjakt · 2004-06-02 05:02 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Look to the wisdom of Carl:
  
  "Whatever, you do your thing, I'll do mine. Y'know. Whatever. You're the stupid one. Think you're gonna live forever? Nope. Someone'll kill ya. Someone'll kill ya with a knife. Sorry, that's just the way it is."
  
  -Carl, ATHF
  
  --
  I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
2. Re:I am just afraid... by cosmo7 · 2004-06-02 05:15 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Tyrell: What-- What seems to be the problem?
  
  Roy: Death.
  
  Tyrell: Death. Well, I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction, you--
  
  Roy: I want more life, fucker.
  
  Tyrell: The facts of life. To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.
  
  Roy: Why not?
  
  Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.
  
  Roy: What about EMS recombination.
  
  Tyrell: We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.
  
  Roy: Then a repressive protein that blocks the operating cells.
  
  Tyrell: Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication so that the newly formed DNA strand carries the mutation and you've got a virus again. But, uh, this-- all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
  
  Roy: But not to last.
  
  Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very very brightly, Roy. Look at you. You're the prodigal son. You're quite a prize!
Job applications of the future by mccalli · 2004-06-02 04:23 · Score: 5, Funny

Java/Swing developer required. Must have a minimum of 800 years of experience, with at least 600 of those having been gained in a financial environment.
Cheers,
Ian
1. Re:Job applications of the future by period3 · 2004-06-02 04:46 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  If we're still using Java/Swing 800 years from now, then you can keep your immortality drugs!
2. Re:Job applications of the future by Tablizer · 2004-06-02 04:49 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  If we're still using Java/Swing 800 years from now, then you can keep your immortality drugs!
  
  1964 Slashdot: "If we're still using COBOL 40 years from now, then you can keep your age-extension drugs!"
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
murder rate will sky rocket by millahtime · 2004-06-02 04:26 · Score: 4, Funny

The murder rate will sky rocket because

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

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

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

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Evolution or ID?
Re:Don't by Scrameustache · 2004-06-02 04:30 · Score: 4, Funny

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

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

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You can't take the sky from me...
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2004-06-02 04:32 · Score: 4, Funny

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

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

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The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:Off with their balls! by Tablizer · 2004-06-02 04:38 · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

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Table-ized A.I.
(Shamelessly ripped off from The Onion) by The-Bus · 2004-06-02 04:42 · Score: 5, Funny

In other news:

World Death Rate Remains Steady at 100%
World Death Rate, Annual ------------------------ 2004 (est) 100.00% 2003 100.00% 2002 100.00% 2001 100.00% 2000 100.00% Source: USA Today

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Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... by GoofyBoy · 2004-06-02 04:44 · Score: 4, Funny

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

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

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The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Wow, that is hilarious! by gosand · 2004-06-02 05:08 · Score: 5, Funny

As an added bonus, I don't think you'll find a more succinct (and utterly British) answer to overpopulation objections to life extension than the one at the end of this article!"
FORTUNE is published biweekly and may also publish occasional extra issues. Cover price is $4.99. Rate good in U.S. only. In Canada, 6 issues/$6.95C, 14 issues/$13.90C, subject to GST, HST, and QST. Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery of your first issue. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within two years.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Those crazy Brits!

--

My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Re:In response to the anticipated flood ... by Alsee · 2004-06-02 20:32 · Score: 4, Funny

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

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

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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.