Paypal Co-Founder Backs Anti-Aging Research Prize

Baldrson writes, "Anti-aging researchers, via The Methuselah Mouse Prize or M-Prize, are receiving an additional $3 million incentive to stop and reverse aging. Researchers win M-Prize money in increments by breaking longevity records for mice or reversing their aging. The philanthropic donation comes from Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of PayPal. Mr. Thiel has pledged to match each dollar donated to the M-Prize with his own 50 cent contributions up to $3 million." The M-Prize was created by Aubrey de Grey, a controversial biomedical gerontologist in Cambridge, England.

Comments

Heinlein had a better idea

[MichaelSmith]

Pay the money to people with a family history of long lifespans if they breed with other qualifiers. Even if this prize leads to mice with long lifespans it may not deliver usable insights into human ageing

Re:Heinlein had a better idea

[kfg]

On a base of 1000 years of selective breeding. In another 200 years they won't be going twice as fast again. In fact most of the improvement is in training methods improvements, not in the breed.

There are natural limits. Living longer isn't at all the same thing as not aging. People who die at 120 do so having been really old people for 40 years.

Bear in mind that I have a track record here of being Mr. It Isn't Aging, You've Just Let Yourself Go; and in the 1990s my Uncle Eli grabbed the all time record for oldest licensed driver in American history (he sucessfully passed his test at 104), but after 80 years all bets are off. You degrade, not how you live or what you do.

Uncle Eli will not be applying to be tested again.

This prize is aimed at halting the degrading.

KFG

Dawkins

[arun_s]

I recollect reading in atleast 1 book of Richard Dawkins (not sure which), that ageing was evolutionarily inevitable.
The reason being that parasitic genes in a host that usually end up killing or harming it will quickly be removed from the gene pool. So such genes are not evolutionarily successful.
On the other hand, if their effect was triggered only after a certain number of years (when an animal has already performed its main purpose of reproduction), there is no drive for it to be removed from the gene pool. An animal with the parasite would be as successful in spreading its genes as one without it. So over the years, the early-acting bad stuff has been wiped out bit by bit by natural selection, while the latent ones have been accumulating all along.
I'm sure someone with more knowledge in this will chip in.

Re:Dawkins

[MichaelSmith]

I recollect reading in atleast 1 book of Richard Dawkins (not sure which), that ageing was evolutionarily inevitable.

If evolution had meant us to fly it would have given us wings. It didn't, yet we do fly.

Its called engineering and its as much a result of our evolution as anything else. We already live 2 or 3 times longer than we did "in the wild" because of our engineered environment. I don't see why we couldn't go further.

Re:Dawkins

[kfg]

A g....g.....g...irl?

It's just a figure of speach. My figure is male.

However, when I say I am a parasite I mean that in the classical sense. I am, essentially, a male geshia, although spelling it "raconteur" carries more social standing. People invite me to their social functions (and sometimes even pay me for it) simply to have me at their social functions; as an assurance of having a certain amount of society guarunteed.

I provide value by simply being around, so people are inclined to gather my food for me. I am mitochondria of the human social organism.

KFG

Re:Culture of Death

[skurk]

I agree. I don't want to live an unnaturally long life, but I _would_ like to see the future...

So the day it's possible to cryogenically freeze people, I'm in.

Imagine being frozen for 50 years, then brought back so you could see the world for 1 year, then frozen for another 50, and so on until your natural death. You could witness the world thousands of years from now.

THAT would be great.

Selfish megalomania != philanthropy

[gjuk]

Bill Gates - genuinely philanthropic - his ego might like the fact that he is the man that's saving the world, but at least he's saving other people.
The paypal guy has just looked in the mirror, realised he's getting older, and wants to live longer. He's worked out that if a few days' coding, some neat financial agreements and a bit of luck can make hundreds of millions of dollars; perhaps a few million dollars and some injecting of mice can lead to him living forever. The guy is more Frankenstien than philanthropist.
Job done.

Organ Doaner

[wowbagger]

And of course, you will pay for the costs of freezing yourself, and maintaining the equipment, how, exactly?

More than likely, it will be much like a couple of SF stories by different authors - the section of Larry Niven's "The Long A.R.M. of Gil Hamilton" wherein a law allowing corpsicles to be thawed and broken up for parts is being considered.

However, I like a short story I read many years ago - a man has himself frozen, and is awakened. He wakes to find another, older man next to his bed. They strike up a conversation about what has changed - the young man asks about the older man's earrings, which he is informed are antenna. He is then told he is being prepped for heart surgery. "But I don't have a bad heart" the young man says. "No, but I do" says the older man.