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Ask Aubrey de Grey About Longevity Research
There may be such a thing as a conventional scientist -- but Aubrey de Grey is not one. Instead, biogerontologist de Grey has spent much of the last 20 years investigating the science of aging by considering the aging process as a multifaceted disease whose manifestations can be mitigated, rather than an inevitability to merely accept. That might not be unusual in itself, but de Grey believes that by addressing the causes and symptoms of aging, human life can be extended to at least 1000 years — a stance has earned him accolades and contempt in various degrees. (He might not especially mind being called names like "rogue" and "maverick," though.) De Grey is also chairman and chief science officer of The Methuselah Foundation, whose M-Prize for extending the lifespan of mice has been mentioned on Slashdot before. Ask de Grey about his research below; he'll answer the top-rated questions, and we'll publish them in this space. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply — so ask all the questions you'd like, but please confine yourself to one per post.
From the studies I've looked at, and the differing oppinions of the popular media, there seems to be a lot of misconceptions on the effects (or lack thereof) of telomerase on aging. Could you give a brief discussion of that (and possibly other factors/nonfactors and relative importance)?
What tangible, confirmed success have you had in extending the lifespan of humans, if any?
So let's say that you or some other scientist in the field figures out a way to actually get humans to live to 1000 years. Have you or anybody in your field considered that humans living that long would grossly exacerbate the current crisis concerning population and resources?
I don't respond to AC's.
Has any research been done on how extreme longevity affects a person psychologically?
You mad
Okay, I'm sure you've gotten this joke a statistically significant number of times, but have you done any metrics on how many people ask you... "Longevity research? De Grey? Dorian Gray?" per month? Does this joke get weaker over time, or stronger? Can you give us some sort of picture of the phenomenon?
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Most people understand that parts of biological life break-down over time for various reasons, mostly environmental. What have we learned so far about humans, for example, and why cell death occurs?(Setting aside environmental causes like cancer, virii, toxins, etc.) If you had 60 secs to get a college student excited about wanting to study and research life extension, what would you say besides the obvious 'live-forever' meme?
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Most people are very afraid of dying, and would spend almost any amount of money to live longer. Anyone promising to help them do so can extract nearly limitless quantities of money from people. Given that, why should we believe you aren't a complete charlatan?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Old people do not want to die but have lots of money. Is it really as easy as you make it look to have them give you their money?
Do you think that there is something after death? If so, why extend life?
What's up with the damn beard?
Really. Troll me if you want but that thing is strange.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Do you or your organization research the societal implications of extreme long life? How will our cultures, society, and laws, and families/family structures have to change to accommodate long life? Are we ready for it?
More Caffeine. NOW
Rephrased as the parent poster doesn't understand how to ask a question:
Given Anonymous Crowhead's 20 years in science, should he get a PhD too?
Given that the most promising research to-date on life-extension (resveratrol and caloric restriction) can produce about a 40% increase in maximum lifespan at best, how do you estimate that we can achieve a lifespan of 1,000 years (about a 10-fold increase in current maximum lifespans)?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I'd love to believe that we might "cure" aging within my lifetime, but several of the aging mechanisms discovered over the past 20 years (many of which you personally get credit for) appear more-or-less absolute limits to longevity. As just one example, telomerase - Inhibit it (as most human cells do), and cells can only divide a finite number of times; reenable it, and we live right up until we die of cancer.
Given such limitations, do you still consider near-immortality as a realistic possibility, or will we merely see a continuation of the current trend of higher functionality up the extreme natural limit to our lifespans (110 to 120 years), at which point people simply die of nothing?
If you increase the lifespan of the average human to 1000 years would they remain fertile in proportion? Would a women remain fertile until about age 350?
Also, would a child not encounter puberty until age 130?
Surely you've been asked the overpopulation question before, what is your response?
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
What 5 things can anyone do to guarantee an extension of their life? IE: foods, habits, etc.
4 8 15 16 23 42
what are some of the most promising technologys that could have the most impact? and how soon?
-Nex6
Let's say we can live for 400, 600, 1000 years. How will we cope with all those centuries of memories? Even people nearing a century often (usually?) can't cope with that much info about themselves. Their personalities are often severly constrained, or at least exclude quite a bit of who they were 3/4 of a century ago. Is perhaps some of that limitation not merely "hardware", which your research targets, but also our "software", the way we integrate experiences into our personality and worldview?
Across 1000 years, a lot of those experiences are going to conflict, made as they are out of the human condition. How do we keep our minds together as well as your medicine proposes to maintain our bodies?
Myself, I drink to forget. Maintaining a window of clarity here towards the end, at the expense of a murky past I can't recall, is my own contribution to your grand project. Here's mud in yer eye!
--
make install -not war
What vitamins would you recommend to slow the process of aging?
And are there ways in which we can collectively lower the cost of production and distribution?
Does this mean I'll have to work for another 700+ years before I can afford to retire?
How many of you out there have had a mouse that ended up getting a tumor? Or perhaps a rat?
The problem with extending aging, as you can see with these rodents, is eventually they all get cancer. This is because their life in the hands of a caring human being can be MUCH longer, relatively, than if they were out scurrying in a forest somewhere. Maybe you can extend general human life, but you are going to start seeing a lot more cancer and a lot more Alzheimer's.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
When is it realistic to think we could expand one's life (I'm 28 year old)? Will by grandchildren be able to live much longer?
Given that so many well understood treatable and cureable diseases TODAY are not treated or cured, isn't it putting the cart before the horse to concentrate one life extension?
Given our overpopulation, limited natural resources, and great resistance to any sort of population control, throttling, etc, isn't age extension an irresponsible idea? Couldn't the effort be on making sure the earth is still habitable for at least another 1000 years?
Dude, what's with the beard?
This is rather personal, I know, but I feel it is relevant to your work.
What system of philosophy do you subscribe to that drives you to discover such things? Is it just the desire to see man taken to his highest potential, or is it something deeper?
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
I want to ask, if in your opinion transhumanism has any hope of overcoming the death instinct?
It seems that a lot of people hate life and don't want transhumanists working to increase the human lifespan. How will you deal with the political pressure?
Given what feels like 20 years in grad school, can I get my PhD yet?
(Not a question).. but whenever this topic shows up I'm always going back to reading it. It's more a detective story in a world where body swapping with memory retention is possible. Quite good, cheesy, gory sci-fi. Disturbingly thought out torture (torture, bodyswap, rinse repeat).
But the meths! the meths! What great characters. The ultra-rich that have been around forever, have all the money, all the power, and never die. Begs an interesting question, how likely is this to be for the 'average' human vs. the 'ultra-rich', and how tightly controlled? Is this even a good idea (overpopulation, strain on the planet, etc). What impacts does it have for violent crimes (murder, etc)?
Just thoughts to the general slashdot folks..
..."I've been working on this for about eighty years now, and we've only made a bit of headway. I expect that I've got a few more decades of research to do before we have something we can hang our hats on. I may even be retired by that time."
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Not everyone will live 130 years.
Despite using stem cells and other methods of rejuvenation, gravity is constantly pulling us down. What do you suggest to combat the inevitable sagging of internal and external structures due to this?
If the average human lifespan were extended to 1000, would the average human age at a normal speed (i.e., like now), then hit a certain specific age and remain at that age until the end (everlasting youth), or would the aging be constant?
If you went to Cambridge, and you can convince that institution that the work you've done in your twenty years since deserves a PhD, then you can have one too.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
If the 3 trillion dollars spent on the Iraq war was spent on life extension instead, how much would this extend the average human life?
I always figured the best way to get everyone to live longer to have a life race like the space race of the cold war years?
Well, apparently if you were a Cambridge undergrad when the policy was in place, 'all' you have to do is make a significant contribution to the field, submit your work, and defend it in an oral examination. That's a reasonable approach - you make it sound like he has a self-awarded Ph.D., or that it came from the Jamaican Schhol for Advanced Studies, Periodonty, and Carburetor Repair...
Be careful of your thoughts; they could become words at any minute...
We should be learning about longevity from people like this.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
Will medical advances alone be enough to extend our longevity to the extent you believe it can be, or will health promoting lifestyle changes also need to be made? If health promotion is more important that medicine, how can we achieve this?
Is the beard a requirement for working with the Methuselah Foundation?
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
Of everything I have read involving your work, I've easily found the WILT proposal the most fascinating. Could you provide a brief overview of it, so people may learn of this fascinating possible treatment.
Also, a quick update on how you're going about bringing this treatment to become a reality?
What social problems do you forsee occurring if your research is moderately successful but the cost is too high for the vast majority of the population, and how do you personally plan to avoid being ripped apart by the mob?
Ask Aubrey de Grey About Longevity Research
So, um, Mr de Grey, what can you tell us about longevity research ?
(damn, I should have taken that job at the beach)
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
If I gave you a lab rat today, how long could you extend his life?
What about me - is there anything I can do (other than a healthy lifestyle), or could have done, today, to start extending my life?
How long before the answers to either of these questions change significantly? 5 years? 10? 20?
Imagine for a second that humans could live for 1,000 years. Putting aside the inevitable overpopulation effects, I could see this having two very different effects on humanity, depending on how the aging slowdown works.
If you effectively stay 20-40 for a few centuries, I could see this as a boon to mankind. People would be able to try different careers out and save up a lot of money for their retirement at the ripe old age of 900. Advancements might be made quicker as people bring new perspectives from their old careers into their new ones.
Alternatively, if you effectively age to 60-80 and then stay there, I could see progress being stifled. People naturally tend to get set in their ways as they age. (I can see it happening with me and I'm not even 35 yet!) The older generation tends to view new technology with a suspicious eye while the younger generation embraces it. Right now, an aging "baby boom" generation might make laws to hold back progress because it offends their moral/religious views or because they just fear it. However, that generation will naturally be replaced by a younger generation more willing to accept the change.
Imagine if the stifling baby boomer generation's reign lasted for 600 years, though! They could hold progress back long enough that, by the time they were ready to give up power, the "younger" generation would be old already, set in their ways, and used to things the way they were under the stifling reign. Society's and technology's advances would slow to a crawl.
My question would be: Which of these scenarios do you think is more likely given a radical increase in human lifespan?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
In your opinion, if I wanted to give my best effort to extending the number of years I'm alive, what would be the top things I should do?
I'll let you decide how many things to include.
Thank you
Gary
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
Assuming that the "self" (ie. the soul/consciousness/memory/etc.) resides biologically and physically in the brain and considering that, from what I understand, longevity research has a great deal to do with regeneration of cells more than extending lifetimes of individual cells, what implications are there if an individual has wholly "regenerated" the cells in their brain?
For example, somebody may have a brain that is composed of entirely new brain cells than they had X number of years ago. Does this have implications of their memory of themselves, their sense of self, etc.?
Do you want to live forever? In any case, do you have a fear of death?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Once you're satisfied with your findings/research/results/theories, will you apply it to yourself first in order to prove it to the rest of the world?
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
What beard ;)
.
Oh, I'm supposed to ask a question, so I will. I believe that as treatments appears to fix the "inevitable" aspects of the aging process, they will be widely utilized and fairly non-controversially included in modern medicine, much as treatments for both great and small age related diseases have been up until now. Do you agree? Or do you expect villagers with torches and pitchforks to storm Frankenstein's laboratory when he comes up with a method to let Granddad hang on for a few hunderd years more?
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
There is some indication that neurogenesis occours in adults around the ventricles, but it doesn't appear to contribute significantly to the population of brain cells, and it also appears unlikely that it can completely renew the whole brain.
Furthermore, mature neurons don't divide, there's been some suggestion that new neurons would have their own "personalities" and could not be integrated into the brain without affecting function.
The brain cells that you have when you're 20 are apperantly all you are going to have.
While neurons can survive for quite a long time, they eventually succumb to damage (not just from alchohol, also from normal cellular function.)
To sum up, once you're an adult you're constantly losing brain cells and they're not coming back.
My question is, if we do extend our lives much further, what is our mental state going to be? A lot of the mental decline among seniors might be due to other health problems, but at some point, aren't we going to be noticably brain-damaged? Is there any indication at what point this might become a factor for "healthy" individuals?
"Personally, I've been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I'm willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes." - Patrick Nielsen Hayden
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Considering your line of study, would you say the more difficult issues to deal with regarding life extension are technical ones (how do we do it?) or moral ones (why do we do it?)
One thing I have often though about when considering longevity is the importance of perpetually "curing" aging. For example, if you did get us 1000 years we could reasonably expect to be able to get more life out of us with technology 1000 years more advanced than we have now, so we can keep continually extending the "mortal coil" and so long as it moves even slightly faster than we do we'll be safe for ever.
But what I really want to know is, how important do you think the next 100 years will be in this effort? Do you take the view that if we can still be here in 100 years we stand a really good chance of getting the 1000 years (I assume, for example, Moore's law would help)? Or do you anticipate that every step will have roughly the same difficulty.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Would you consider it a success if we replace broken body parts with prosthetics, artificial organs, or lab-grown replacements? Or are you focusing on keeping our original stock components?
What quality of life does he expect someone aged 40 in 2008 to have when they reach 100 in 2048.
Assume they live a averagely healthy life (but do not die).
Please rate as an approximate percentage of what they experience now in 2008 for
Sight
Smell
Taste
Touch
Hearing
Mental faculties
1. elastin.. It's not alive, it doesnt regenerate. and even if replaced in a full sized organism, it would already be "loose" because it tightens as we grow, and eventually breaks down.. How do you replace this substance throughout the body? (I'm hoping this covers a bunch of the other materials of the same type)
2. degradation of cell function.. as mutations occur in cells, the functional protiens become non-functional.. while these arent cancerous, they are problematic as they're just hobos in the body. to stop this would require freakloads of genetic therapy, rather than the smaller amount needed to repair cancer.
3. Overcoming telomerase,, so does it get nuked by your gene therapy, or are the stem cells engineered to full length only..
4. How do you keep the protein digesting enzymes needed for removing garbage from inside cells from eating barr bodies and other useful proteins that would normally inhabit and possibly pollute a cell.
5. How do you prevent damage to someone who has 2 copies of a gene that are both useful (the two having a broader functional range than any known single gene) from getting your genericized version at both? wiping out the advantage.
6. How do you keep the memories from fading to nothing?
Thanks,
Storm
Do you feel humans have the capability to cope mentally with a 1000 years of life ?
Populations of fruitfly have been bread to live quite a bit longer simply by destroying eggs laid prior to a certain (gradually increasing) age of each generation. I belive this took 50 generations or so. What would be the effect if say China (where couples are only supposed to have one child) allowed couples to have 2 or more children only if all 4 grandparents live to at least a certain age - gradually increaseing. Could we simply select for longevity? What biological dangers would be present in such an approach? Yes, this would be huge social issue, but 1/5 of the human population is already having reproduction regulated.
Are you a proponent of assisted suicide?
Should humans someday find that living to 1,000 as "normal" (through genetic advances, let's say), there will certainly be some that would prefer to live to 750, 500 or 100. Do you find it ethical to provide them an "early ticket"?
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Based on the current level of your research, what is the best advice you can give to beat aging?
Based ony my understanding of aging it is centered around cellular reproduction. Each time a cell reproduces, it can effectively do one of three things.
1. Reproduce a working copy
2. Reproduce a flawed copy
3. No complete the reproduction
In many cases, those flawed copies will be unable to reproduce again or may reproduce rampantly (cancer) or continue reproducing flawed cells that do not function in whatever organ they are a part of. Over time as the number of properly working cells reduces, you effectively "age".
Here are my question(s):
1. Are the assumptions above accurate
2. Does your research treat each symptom of aging as a separate "disease" to be treated, or does it all focus around the notion of cellular reproduction?
Assuming each stage of my life was increased proportionally, I would probably end up spending something like 50 years in a wheelchair, with poor eyesight and Alzheimer's disease.
If this is the case, would it possible for me to revert to 'normal' aging and only have to suffer through something like 5 years of limited functionality as an alternative to suicide? Or would the 'treatment' for aging be a permanent choice and its cure death itself? I really don't want to spend 50 years in a wheelchair with poor eyesight and memory too poor to remember how to turn on a computer only to die at the end of it. I doubt many other people would either.
If you're not sure because the technique itself is too undeveloped (which is more than likely true), then will there at least be a standard that requires (or at least promotes/prefers) a killswitch in the technique?
of the mental limitations? What are the issues you have discussed concerning adapting humans mentally to living so long?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Should we double the average human lifespan in the next decade, then long before we 'get old' again we will have doubled it again, and again. Since this sort of progression seems inevitable I fully expect to literally live forever. This is a concept worthy of wrestling with, if any is.
But maintaining our bodies, simple machines in the eyes of our future selves, seems trivial to me when compared to maintaining our mental health, and with this as background I ask you: How long do you think the human mind can survive before reaching a terminal existential crisis, and what do you believe will be the most common motivation for suicide amongst the technologically immortal?
All rites reversed 2010
What is an ideal test subject for your research? If you knew more about me, could I be one?
The average life expectancy (world) just got above 50 years old about 200 years ago. Are there any indications that our brain would be capable of keeping track of 1000 years of memories without modifications? Would it require Borg implants? I'm sure people asked the same thing with medical breakthroughs in the 1800s-1900s that caused the jump in life expectancy back then. Only they probably liked Kirk more.
It is sure to spice up the "you must be new here" meme.
alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls
Has anyone given serious thought to the sociological context in which the first Methuselae will live?
i.e. if there are 300 year old humans in 2250, they were likely prominent and wealthy today, and would have had the attention of countless medical staff, etc., so, they are unlikely to remain anonymous or hidden. How are these few potential immortals going to integrate with the billions of mere mortals on the planet who are dying off in their low to mid 100's?
The Slashdot community is more familiar with Richard Stallman. Could you compare and contrast your views and his with regard to beards?
Bonus question: What is your favorite ZZ Top song?
I don't know much about the field, but I'm curious to know how you feel about the research on natural selection and aging. I know that researchers have been able to significantly extend the lifespan of fruit flies by delaying reproduction. This suggests that some components of aging are acted on by natural selection, and not merely the accumulation of damage to cells. Is this view incompatible with your view about accumulated molecular damage, and if so, why do you prefer the cell damage view?
I would like to ask what your opinion is of the value of Human Growth Hormone replacement therapy as an anti-aging treatment.
Do you think we'll see a way to extend our lifetime substantially within our lifetime? Within yours specifically?
I'm often surprised at the resistance that life-extension receives from both political and religious groups. How has government restrictions or oversight on research topics such as stem cell research affected your efforts on human aging.
There are markets in resold life insurance contracts, known as death futures. I don't know if there is a liquid market in life-expectancy-derived instruments, but insurers and pension funds should be keen to hedge some of their risk from increased life expectancy.
Therefore, if you know that life expectancy is going to increase more than most people think, you should take a position in these instruments and profit over the long term (that is, as soon as everyone else realizes that you are probably correct). On the other hand, if you already had a long position in a life expectancy swap so that you make money as expectations of life expectation increase, it would make sense to talk up your own research and encourage people to believe lifespans will get longer so that your investment will increase in value.
So have you made any such bets on life expectancy a few decades from now?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I heard Steven De Blind is doing research on sight problems
Let's cut through all the bullshit from futurists who use sensational dates merely to get an audience. Are there any living people today who will be able to live forever?
Since life extension would make older people radically healthier, do you think pharmaceutical companies will be willing to invest in or sell true anti-aging drugs, when they're making a fortune selling palliatives for the symptoms of aging?
Why kill the golden goose, when there's always more old people coming along when the current batch dies off?
If life extension requires cellular / genetic modification what can be done, in terms of positively raising awarness about human cellular modification, to prevent governments from banning this nacient science?
It's time to leave science to the hundred-twenty-year-olds. - Farnsworth
Now lets say the number of hoagies is n.
If c is the number of commercials viewed, and...
well, the math is complicated.
It would take no more resources for a 3rd world man to live for 1000 years than it would take an American to sit through about 20 hours of superbowl videos.
The point is, to live a healthy 1000 years you're probably going to be sucking some sort of babyfood through a tube for about 500 of them.
Babyfood is cheap. A 'virtual' existence can be relatively cheap to accomodate, and still rewarding. Think Stephen Hawking.
Whether any of this science or debate is relevant is determined by the very real chance of self-annihilation in the next several decades.
THAT is the real longevity test.
Quite a few of the questions already asked have been answered in 1 of de Greys talks.
I urge slashdotters to watch this short lecture.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html
Answer to that is found from the website:
"I've said in the past that the first person to live to 1000 was probably born by 1945"
http://www.mfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=timeframe
Others have listed potential problems, I'm interested in the follow-up question to those: what do you look for to say "this won't work"?
Simply stating "I believe it can" is the realm of religion. What evidence would it take to convince you that it isn't possible after all?
Given your best expectations of an average lifespan of 1000 years, how do you see youthfulness scaling to that extent. Do we now spend 40 years as infants, 140 as children, at 500 your over the hill,etc.
What about the other aspects of quality of life, work, shelter, luxury, food, relationships. What impact would living this long have.
The radioactive isotope carbon 14 is in everything we eat. It seems likely the bombardment of DNA by these low levels or radioactivity would be enough over time to degrade our structure, contributing to the aging process. Do you agree?
Would you experiment those treatments in yourself?
2) Another example: if I eat at Subway's, and some poor 80 year old guy eats at Subway's, how come his body takes the ageless atoms and arranges them as "80 year old" cells? When he poops them out the next day, and they can be used to grow new lettuce, I can feed a kid and he will then make "kid aged" cells with the *same* atoms, correct?
3) If atoms don't have an age, how come we do? Is the pattern degrading? If so, how can we make babies? Where does the "new" pattern come from?
4) How important is Alagebrium in the near future?
5) Any news on Brooke Greenberg? How important is she?
Mostly random stuff.
I've wondered about this: In looking at my dog, who just had his 14th birthday, he shows all the signs of old age -- arthritis, gray hair, hearing loss, etc. Why do some mammals age faster than others? Why are human bodies just getting started at 18 years old, and that's getting to the outer range for dogs? This seems like a fundamental question of this subject.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm not saying he is a charlatan. It's just that I'd like to see some proof that he isn't. For instance, why does he do so much public speaking on the subject? What research does he actually do himself? How is his research funded?
What do his colleagues in the field think of him? Here is a great quote from Jason Pontin:
But what struck me is that De Grey is a troll. For all de Grey's vaulting ambitions, what Sherwin Nuland saw from the outside was pathetically circumscribed. In his waking life, de Grey is the ÂcomÂputer support to a research team; he dresses like a shabby graduate student and affects Rip Van Winkle's beard; he has no children; he has few interests outside the science of biogeronÂtology; he drinks too much beer.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I'm not much over 40, and I can already tell my memory isn't as good as I was younger. My father, another 30 years older than me, has significant problems with short term memory, despite otherwise decent health. Do you agree that focusing primarily on minimizing the debilitating effects of aging is the best approach, rather than focusing simply on extending life itself regardless of the quality of life it would give?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I'd really like to see if this country gets more fun to live in by its tricentennial. Also I would like to go to the moon, and it'll probably be a while before that's an option for poor people.
you make it sound like he has a self-awarded Ph.D., or that it came from the Jamaican Schhol for Advanced Studies, Periodonty, and Carburetor Repair
Hey! I went to the Jamaican School for Advanced Studies, Periodonty, and Carburetor Repair, you insensitive clod! That's where I got my master's degree in limbo and my Ph.D. in sex.
Have you considered that aging, as a mechanism of limiting average life span, may not be a "disorder" but rather a biological adaptation, important for evolution? At the level of populations, where a lot of evolution occurs, it may be advantageous to limit the number of previous generations with which new ones have to compete. Useful new mutations will also be more likely to gain penetrance, I would think. And beyond that, life span is one of those system parameters - like mutation rate, recombination frequency, generation length, etc. - that determine the performance of evolutionary systems themselves as optimizers.
Which is not to say we are bound to accept it, of course. Many species live longer than humans, and many more not nearly as long. There is certainly more to it than the analogy of machinery "wearing out". Were mankind able to unravel this process and stop or reverse it, that would be quite an adaptation in itself, wouldn't it?
Or will it only be available to billionaires?
There are several promising animal models (caloric restriction, resveritol) for increasing longevity by 20-40%. Given that human beings already seem to live unusually long for mammals of our size, it is possible evolution (driven social/cultural advantages granted by long-lived friends and relatives) has already acted to take advantage of the biochemical processes involved.
What research has been done on human biochemistry to assess if that might be the case?
Only 13 of the mitochondrion's component proteins are still encoded by its own DNA, and it's therefore only these 13 genes that remain vulnerable to the constant assault from free radicals produced during respiration (the life-giving reaction of oxygen and food by the mitochondria).
If we can incorporate working copies of that mtDNA into our nuclear DNA, the mtDNA will be rendered superfluous and any mutations it suffers will be inconsequential. Researchers have tried to do this for many years, with only limited success.
So, has this ever been done in any organism in the lab? Is it possible that the remaining mitochondrial genes may need to be physically located in the mitochondria themselves for them to work and/or multiply?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Wait a minute... Didn't Alex Chiu master how to extend longevity years before this guy did?
Well, the thing is that it does still happen. A lot of people will figure out, "wth, I have no clue how to solve it anyway, might as well just get paid anyway". Basically they'll still die either way, but they'll die a lot richer.
Plus, while "charlatan" has the implication of premeditated fraud, some people might be well meant, but clueless. Look at all the conspiracy theorists trying to save us from some danger or bring forth some utopia, but who can't really do it anyway. Just believing in something, and even dedicating one's life to something, doesn't mean you're right too.
At any rate, I do see the GP's point. The search for the elixir of life is as old as humanity itself. From tribal stone age hunter-gatherers, to the 20'th century, that's one invariant that's never left us: there'll always be people paying for any snake oil to prolong their life, and people who'll be perfectly happy to sell them snake oil. There's been even at least an Eastern European dictator, the name and place escape me now, who's funded massive research into the already discredited "polymer water" scam... and some "Ph.D." who was more than happy to be paid richly for maintaining that illusion and false hope. But he's not the only one.
Ah, I see you've answered your own objections there.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Hello Dr Grey This might have been covered but what the heck: What is your position on the future of organ harvesting or grow-to-order organ replacement as a component of combating aging? I imagine parts of my body are too far gone to save (liver? brain? colon?) and I might be better served to simply swap these out down the road than undertake a rejuvenation regimen. Ps.... screw all those fools, the beard rocks...if for no other purpose than an awesome sample collection mechanism.
Several scienc fiction writers have written science fiction novels about near-immortality. The more difficult situation may be a small group of immortals co-existing with mostly mortals such in Ann Rice's novels. They may become "unrooted in time" and suffer psychological problems.
How about putting that research money to something useful like helping sick children, not making people live to 1000.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
Coming from the point of view of natural selection, there would appear to be no selective advantage for our bodily processes to keep going beyond a certain age. Once we have reproduced, and our children have reproduced, our reproductive fitness can't be improved upon. Keeping this in mind, it makes sense that many of our maintenance systems begin to deteriorate, since there was little selective advantage for individuals to last longer. As I understand it, increasing longevity postpones or reverses these deterioration processes and hence slows the aging process.
My question is the following: let's say we find a major aging process and reverse it. Who's to say that two more won't appear 2 years later and cause more problems? Could it be that since we did not evolve to live past a certain age, we inevitably will fall apart at an exponential rate?
On a humorous note, I have to link this video from Alpha Centauri: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCB9yE9Hcc
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Aubrey de Grey has had only two ideas worth considering IMHO. First he said that longevity should not be a research goal; rather, we should learn to control the rate of aging. And if we can control the rate, perhaps we can learn to reverse aging. The second idea worth considering is specific drugs to break protein cross-linkages. But ideas like finding an agent that will remove all the plaque from your arteries like flooding an iron pipe with caustic soda will leave you with arteries that could blow out like an old rubber tube; so some of his ideas leave a lot to be desired.
Over all, I must admit, the idea of approaching aging as an engineering problem is a refreshing if not always sane point of view.
I'm sure you have thought about the consequences of the human race being capable of living for 1000 years (overpopulation is obviously a subject that comes to mind). However, have you considered that there are some people that we don't want to live this long? What if an Adolph Hitler lived to be 1000 years old? This world needs some people to die of old age. This would surely lead the world into an apocalypse.
If you can live 'beyond the natural limit', what prevents you from going on indefinitely?
Do you think it will be possible to extend John McCain's life long enough to complete two terms as president?
As humans approach the 7Billion mark, how can you justify the goal of longevity, when the mere survival of so many on this planet is questionable? War, starvation, disease, genocide, all still plague our species, yet the possible means for sustained life are probably technically feasible with the coming decade/s. How do you plan to fight the battle of cultural differences that plagues us, in light of the magnificence that sustained longevity would allow?
To ask one question, do you envision that the successful product of Longevity for man will end some, if not all of the problems that have defined and limited our species?
How has the American government's regulation of performance enhancing chemicals, e.g. the steroid crackdown, impacted your research?
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
What sources would you recommend for those having good backgrounds in medicine/biology who want to keep up with research and results from the leading edge in life extension work?
Presuming success, and nonzero cost of treatment, who gets extended life? If you monetize treatment what are the ethical and societal repercussions of allowing only the rich to live a long time?
-- "Oh. This guy again."
Actually the tumors that most female rats acquire with age (they're not nearly as common in the males) are benign tumors of their mammary glands. It's not cancer, where the tumor cells mutate to spread throughout the body. But, if not removed, these tumors will eventually outgrow the rat itself, making it nearly impossible for the animal to move around to get food and water, and it will starve or die of dehydration -- not cancer.
That's just one of countless examples of how nature could not care less what happens to organisms after the typical period of sexual maturity and reproduction. The genetic code is optimized for vitality in the reproductive stage, and I think those same optimizations lead to all manners of gruesome and painful death on the other side of the hill.
I find the subject of longevity research, its implications and possibilities very interesting, but I often find that its a difficult subject to talk about - for example at a dinner with friends and family. People simply laugh at the idea that it just might be possible, within their own normal expected lifespan, to live for 200 years or maybe even more. Some get frightened by the idea and others just say 'impossible!'. How do you best introduce/break the subject of longevity to people who doesn't know much about it, or never have thought about it ?
And bring "new" meaning to the "that never gets old" meme.
To get to what Ray Kurzweil calls the "First Bridge" -- to live long enough to take advantage of the first generation of longevity-enhancing therapies, in 15 to 20 years from now -- many people must change their lifestyles to stay as healthy as possible, so they're in good shape when the time comes.
The role of physical fitness seems to be given mere lip service in the popular longevity literature. By "physical fitness", I don't mean just the lack of obesity, but rather the ability to run at least a marathon, for example. Evolution has selected bodies for us that are capable of very demanding physical tasks, yet most people sit around with resting heart rates at least double what they could be if they were fit.
Do you know of any serious research efforts into the effects of peak physical fitness on optimal health and longevity?
Perhaps an animal research program employing directed evolution would be a good way to uncover solutions to aging mechanisms, considering that aging is ultimately the product of evolution. Take 10,000 mice (chosen because their lifespans are short and they're similar to humans) and carefully control their breeding. Only allow males and females to breed once they're at the extreme upper range of their established reproduction age. Or, alternatively, freeze sperm and ova from mice during their prime reproductive years, and only later breed a new generation with the sperm and ova from mice that lived exceptionally long lives. Each new generation's genome is sequenced and compared to the previous one, as well as to a control group of mice that are bred randomly.
This artificial selection pressure would tend to kill off genes that cause a short lifespan, and enhance the frequency of genes for long life. Assuming humans have similar longevity genes, we could learn which genes to focus on modifying in humans. Depending on the population size and number of generations, useful mutations may even occur. What do you think?
Informative eh?
Advanced Glycation Endproducts seem to be a good target for research (and the ensuing interventions could be marketed as diabetic therapies, ensuring a revenue stream). What's the status on these?
Why are you confident that only some manageable number of therapies will be required?
To put it another way, what evidence is there against the idea that each of the myriad processes in our metabolisms are going to fall apart eventually given that there's never been selective pressure for extreme longevity?
If the regime requires exotic substances or drugs, would the average "man in the street" ever be able to afford the treatment or would it just extend the long tail of the life-expectancy distribution for the super/mega rich?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Have you any need or have thought of using Grid computing services like BOINC to help speed up your research?
If we live for 1000 years, what kind of changes would have to be made to saftey regulations to prevent early accidental deaths?
It occurs to me that, should we live to be 1000, we would probably need to consider how willing we are to pay for a murderer to serve 953 years on tax payer dollars. Do you believe that extending our lifespan will allow for greater rehabilitation of prisoners or an increase in the severity of punishment? (ie rampant death penalty)
... that you don't have the money to do? In my own little 501(c)3 we've always found that people are more likely to give if they know specifically what the money is going to be used for. If we just say "to help support the cause..." then it's nickels and dimes for us instead of dollars.
So what specific projects would you like to be funding, that aren't being adequately funded today?
will your beard be when you reach 1000?
Given that there are so many people in the world already suffering from a lack of basic medical treatment, how would you justify the expense associated with the development and use of life expansion therapies?
Large animals have longer maximal lifespans than small ones, in general. But yet, we are spending our time looking at mice, which have the shortest mammalian lifespan, in the hope of getting something done during the lifespan of the human researcher. Shouldn't we be paying more attention to the genetic makeup of those creatures better adapted than humans for long life?
Assuming you are successful.
Assuming that this becomes part of the standard health-care package that today's politicians are declaring an unearned right for every human being.
Assuming today's population of 6.6 billion people represents three concurrent generations with an average of twenty-five years between generations.
Assuming that birth rates stabilize at 1.0 children per person (ie. all people enter into monogomous life-long partnerships having only two children per couple for the remainder of their extended lives).
That puts the Earth's population around 88 billion just by virtue of everyone living 1,000 years. Have you thought about the consequences of this technological advancement?
No, what are your plans for the consequences of this advancement?
I for one would certainly like to benefit and encourage you to succeed, but I'm not so sure that couple down the street is deserving...they're strange.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
What findings if any have you found in the area of gray matter production?
What sort of political ramifications do you see this research, if successful, having on the global population? As in, how would we prevent severe overpopulation without either blatantly unethical population control legislation or enforced selectivity on who would receive treatment that would be seen as worse than Hitler in WW2?
Never disregard the raw power inherent to stupidity... they call it "dumb luck" for a reason...
Any progress on the idea that bacteria, particularly ones found in graves, can clean up extracellular metabolic junk in living people?
Has there ever been a documented case of an animal being born without this disease ? One would think that this might be possible if we consider aging a disease. Also once an animal had this mutation, wouldn't it then have an increased chance of passing it on ? I feel like since there doesn't seem to be many mutations that prolong life expectancy, then it probably isn't very likely.
Can we experiment on inmates sentanced to life in prision?
How do you expect governments to manage this or better yet, do you have any plan to keep governments or companies from controlling who can and cannot receive longevity?
Once some people have it and they reproduce, will the longevity condition be passed on or will they need to go through "treatment" as well?
My father is a Malacologist (study of Molluscs). When I was younger, he once told me about one mollusc (he told me the exact name, but I can not recall) that never died of "old age" but just due to predation.
This mollusc supposedly just kept growing and growing and migrating its shell when it was not big enough.
Have you read or heard about this? or more generally, have you any other similar example of an organism in nature which observes such kind of cell regenerating behaviour that we (humans) can learn to duplicate and use to our advantage?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Aging does have one important purpose. Its purpose is to stop cancer by killing the cells after they have duplicated themselves enough many times, before the duplicating starts producing bad copies.
If you could find a way to identify bad copies and destroy them. You could perhaps disable the aging-counter without side effects.
Just because the status quo is the suffering and death of 100,000 people per day doesn't mean we have to put up with it when a choice exists because of potential social consequences.
We are dealing with the social consequences of the suffering and deaths of our loved ones (and eventually ourselves) NOW!
What kind of sense of proportion is there in suggesting that this is a situation that should be allowed to continue even one infinitesimal portion of a second past the time when we are able to do something to alleviate the carnage of 100,000 *people* dying from age-related causes everyday?
These are people with jobs, loved ones, and ultimately they are human beings. What does it say about a society that looks upon the aged as 'disposable'?; and treats the resource of wisdom and experience within their minds as if it was worthless?
Perhaps the maturity that would come to a world with healthy and actively engaged individuals of a century or more would help us approach perennial problems of wealth distribution, pollution, violence and more that our short term perspectives born of shorter lifespans gives rise to.
If a 100-year old man looks like a white prune?
I am curious what your current research limitations are (if any), and what may be causing them? Steep slopes caused by political or financial concerns?
How do you think about cryogenics? Do they provide a good alternative for everybody who can't live long enough to be treated with anti-aging technology?
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
How do you think we could cope if the average life length was extended by a factor of five or even ten? Don't you think that we're already too many down here?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wEyguiO4UW0
In this talk, you mention some pretty remarkable successes in getting cells with damaged mitochondrial DNA to revive.
Have you made any progress in this area? How long until we could see a genetically engineered mouse, for example, to see just how much of an effect this would have on aging as a whole?
What, if anything are you doing to prolong your own life?
- By this I refer to those who are in their 70's today who grew up in a time when racism was the norm. Racism, while certainly not gone, has faded as children grew up in a more diverse world.
People from one "era" living on into changing times may have the effect of slowing down change.
- Right now we know our parents, grandparents, and possibly great grandparents. Would we simply come up with new names for previous generations?
Enough of my babbling....just be careful what you wish for
I refuse to sign
Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that human development seems focused on procreation, based on the fact that a person is at their healthiest when they are most likely to procreate. Any genetics dealing with life after procreation is not filtered the same as that which occurs before and thus can lead to devastating results.
With that in mind, would it not be more beneficial to prolong puberty or even postpone it, seeing that the effects of aging seem to occur after puberty?
It would do little to help adults, but it seems to be the most likely to be successful option as it requires the least amount of modification. It would also lead to longer living humans that would be more likely to solve the adult aging issues, as well... though there would be less willing test subjects after 50-70 years.
... I think there was a Star Trek (TOS) episode that dealt with this idea.
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
You eggheads can have your PHds, I have gold medals in sex and limbo.
Morphology, longevity, incept dates.
There is no sig.
Do you believe in the concept of "escape velocity" with regards to aging (the notion that, if researchers discover each year ways of reducing our effective age by at least a year, we can live arbitrarily long)? Or is it more realistic to expect research to find the "low hanging fruit" first, with subsequent improvement being more and more difficult (the way computer program optimization works)?
I hope you do realize that that's just the kind of mentality that makes people easy prey for scammers. The idea that OMG, you have to buy immortality somehow, because otherwise you're just dead. So better blow all your money on that nice snake oil. You can't take them with you anyway, right?
Except the way it usually works: both you and the scammer end up just as dead anyway in the end, because so far nobody ever had an immortality potion that actually worked. Oh, they'll have all sorts of cures that they're willing to sell to you. Except you get to live at best just as long with them as without, and at worst a lot shorter. A lot of those cures will end up with you a little poisoned, a little malnourished, or a little executed for murder. (Ask Countess Bathory how her plan for immortality went;) And sometimes as a result you'll live a lot shittier on the way to the inevitable.
Basically what I'm saying is a version of saying that "we have to do something" and "this is something" doesn't add up to "we must do this."
Now I'm not saying that he's necessarily a charlatan, I don't know that. Maybe he's over-optimistic. Or maybe he's even right. Who knows? But we don't know that a priori. I'm just saying: be skeptical, ask to see what he bases his claims on. Which is what the GGGP was doing. Especially when the claims are as wild as "live for 1000 years."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Being someone who'd rather not die anytime soon if given the choice, I'm curious how long you'd estimate until the first breakthrough*?
I'd be curious to see confidence intervals as well.
* For lack of a better metric lets define a breakthrough as the point where, within a 5 year period we have the ability to extend the life expectancy of a healthy person more than 5 years.
I stole this Sig
A lot, and yes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I would be nice if something did.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I just saw a talk by this guy .. and.. well, he does not sound insane or otherwise mentally impaired. quite the opposite.
I am curious to know your stance on regeneration research. Do you see it as a valuable contribution to your work?
From my point of view all of your "7 types of damage" can all be mitigated by regeneration. Assuming "continuous regeneration" (as proposed by Heber-Katz et al. 2006) both senescence and cell loss are immediately mitigated and the other types of damage are essentially diluted out by the constant turn over of cells. Obviously, cancer is still a problem but we are already working on that and a "rejuvenated" immune system may help.
Reference:
Heber-Katz E, Leferovich J, Bedelbaeva K, Gourevitch D, Clark L (2006) Conjecture: Can continuous regeneration lead to immortality? Studies in the MRL mouse. Rejuvenation Research 9: 3-9
"What are you doing to keep your self alive? I notice your somewhat small frame and speculate that you are trying to slow down your own aging by using the metabolism attack vector; a low calorie diet to slow metabolism and thus the damage it causes."
I'm curious if you try to leave old-age diseases and disorders for traditional medical research and take on the problems leftover? What areas of aging has traditional medical research been ignoring?
I stole this Sig
Fair enough. I consider the questions answered to my satisfaction. Sounds like he's not a charlatan.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There are some that would prefer to live to 75, 50, 20 instead of the 100ish years humans live with current technology. Multiplying the numbers shouldn't change anything.
How do you intend to overcome the DNA damage that directly results in/from aging, and what progress have you made to date on this?
What are your plans regarding starting to use your brain to think about what you say?
A) Reproduction becomes far less important.
B) We will never get to 88 billion becasue it can not sustain us.
C) It would be a poor move to have people find solution for other problems that might arise from research. We would never get anywhere.
It's like asking the wright brothers if the considered the dangerous air flight might pose in 100 years, and then trying to get them to solve them before they can take flight.
Your opinions suck, and I want my money back.
I get 60 an hour, and it took 2 minutes to read. I want my 2 dollars!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How do you intend to guarantee that the knowledge/technology that you produce is shared freely with all humanity, and not hoarded by the rich and powerful?
Dear De Grey,
I understand that humans naturally stop the aging process in their late 90's and that the gene that determines when to stop aging has already been identified. Do you have any knowledge of research to alter this gene in lab animals to stop the aging process sooner?
... and in the DRM, bind them.
What do you think would be reasonable longevity goals for the human race to strive for over the next 20, 50, and 100 years?
... for clinical trials? ;-) Would be great to live to 120!
we are not overpopulated by any rational metric. Stop spreading that lie.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Besides the nigh-collapse of the funeral industry, what impacts do you believe a vastly increased lifespan will have on society?
is there a way we can shorten the lifespan of fags and muslims? that would be a great benefit to society.
If you discovered a tweak that could double lifespan in a particular genetic population, would you work to distribute it immediately or do more research to generalize it to all humanity before a distribution?
Given enough time, how long will you be able to grow your beard?
I am a 30 year old male, what should I be doing right now to increase my life span?
Considering that happy and sad are just states of the brain, the problem of pain could probably be solved as well. You'd have to find some new way to stop people from getting themselves killed though, perhaps through decoupling the brain from the body and using remote control.
Because the Republicans will never allow it.
They know that even _Alberta_ would send 2 democrats to the senate.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Brain cells regenerate very slowly. What current strategies do you know of to deal with the problems of keeping the the contents of the brain intact as brain cells die?
Cyou please describe the moment when you gained the insight that led you into the analysis of aging as a group of symptoms that can be mitigated? And has your original inspiration materially changed from this first moment of insight?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
i don't understand what the ethical problem with suicide / assisted suicide is supposed to be. If anything, at the very least everybody owns themselves and has the right to shutdown his body and mind if he so wishes ...
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
Do you anticipate that curing the aging defect will result in remedying other mortal defects? (e.g. will we be more robust and less likely to die from physical trauma? will broken bones and skin heal rapidly? etc) Have you made any advances along these lines so far?
Why do you believe that approaching aging as a multifaceted disease is the best approach? Considering that the human body is capable of creating young, non-damaged cells, i.e. through the reproductive process, does that not indicate that aging could be tied to a single genetic cause?
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Given the large amount of money that has/will go into creating this type of technology/medicine, and how desperate people will be to 'lock in' at their current age, how long would you set an artificially high price? I'm all for making a healthy profit, but for how long? At some point, it seems us little people would die out and we'd eventually have a planet of Paris Hiltons. (Oh my!) Do you see this being a super-rich privilege for one year? Ten years? Forever?
Agile Artisans
As a longevity researcher who is presumably interested in living a long time, why do you choose to smoke?
What, if any, of your discoveries that supposedly increase the human lifespan have you started using yourself?
Right here. http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22Brooke+Greenberg%22&btnG=Search&meta=
Mostly random stuff.
Age related research, and treating aging as if it were a disease seems like a no brainer to me, but from the constant depictions in fiction of immortality-seekers as at best tragic figures, and at worst villians, there is obvious cultural opposition.
As you've talked on the subject frequently, have you gained any special insight into why people fear living longer fuller lives?
One advantage I hardly ever hear mentioned is both a personal and a societal one- more time for personal growth and the development of one's wisdom and expertise. It seems like such a tragedy when a great artist like George Carlin or scientist like Francis Crick dies and takes with them all the accumulated wisdom of a lifetime of effort. More time could help us all live more meaningful, creative lives and reestablish the traditional relationship of society towards its elders... (instead of seeing them as a burden to be hidden away in senior ghetto like "homes") Why not emphasize these types of benefits in your proselytizing?
You've estimated that it will take roughly 10 years to develop rejuvenation in mice but another 15 years after that to do it in humans. Why will take significantly longer to develop the therapies in humans, especially if the basic techniques will already exist?
how you prevent dna degradation from happening, since he cant repair himself if free radicals cut both ribons of the dna.
For the benefit of those evil genius' left in the world, if morality were not an issue, and we could hate the person afterward (not unlike some other medical advances) IF someone were to kidnap say 5-10 people, train them in nothing but biology, physiology, general human systems for 5-10 years then set them to this 24-7, with breaks for sleep and possibly sex to keep them psychologically on track(that's how brainwashing works), what kind of turn around time could we estimate, do you think? Clinical immortality in our lifetime?
Old people have huge ears and huge noses, if we live to 1000 years does this mean our nose and ears will continue to grow? Will stopping the aging process stop them from growing or will everyone over 70 require plastic surgery?
Given the programming on TV these days I am confident this is the most pressing issue mankind faces with the prospect of extended lifespans.
Considering longevity research is a highly interdisciplinary discipline, what are the main contributions you expect from fields like physics, computer science and engineering ? What technologies are needed to realize the solutions to the seven forms of aging you're claiming ?
I am. If you want to live in the dark ages, be my guest.
There is a massive amount of research into cancer, and yet there is no "golden bullet" to cure cancer. Do you honestly think that aging, which I would argue is a field in its infancy, could be "cured" (or delayed ~10 fold as you suggest) within our lifetime? Or do you make that statement more so just to bring attention to the study of aging?
hmm.. choice one
100 healthy years, 900 years sick
choice two
100 healthy years
hmmmmmm
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
There are a couple things that I've found really help me remember those sorts of things. The first is to dig up photographs, objects, a map showing names of parks that you may have played at, or even just a list of your old classmates in school. There seems to be something about the human mind in that it is much easier to recall things when prompted. I've found that I often remember a lot more than I think I did when I come across something that brings back memories. The other thing that seems to help is to just set aside a few minutes with nothing else going on, and think back to one of those events you remember... then start looking around and asking yourself questions: live in the moment. Who was sitting next to you in class? Did you ever see a fun science demonstration? Where did you ride your bike? etc.. The types of things an interested person would ask you. Or think about emotions you had; we often times don't remember specific things that are said but I bet you remember how those things made you feel at the time.
It's almost like a Ghost in the Shell type theory. That our "minds" also include all the objects/people/places in our lives. Not that memories are actually stored externally, but that those things act like pointers or keys to the heap of unsorted memories we already have.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Your values would change.
.. or even now.
Suddenly all life would be so much more precious to you.
You'd take much better care of yourself, you'd plan for the future in a way that our present cognitive understanding of 'long term'.
You'd take better care of your family, your descendants. It would give new meaning to extended family.
We'd take the environment more seriously.
You would treat matters such as war, human rights and mankind's progress much differently, you'd have historical perspective in your own firsthand memory.
What is the average age of a politician these days? 55? 60? They have a couple of decades to live on average and are already in cognitive decline, yet we entrust them to make the right decisions for our future. No wonder the planning in our civilization favors short term gains over long term sustainability. Imagine how the world would be run by people who are mentally sharp, and have accumulated centuries of wisdom.
If we can halt the process of aging this may also stave off dementia and keep our minds optimal indefinitely. Provided you continue to learn you will become very wise in extreme old age (we don't approach the limits of our mental capacity in our short lives, rejuvenating treatments may reset our brains to a childlike ability to learn and process long term). Imagine the impact on science and arts, our greatest minds living indefinitely.
There would be no compelling requirement to have children beyond replacing yourself, and on societal need to replenish the workforce removed by retiring individuals. Therefore I think population would eventually decline, or at least not blow out as some suggest.
We can still be killed by disease, accidents, homicide and natural disasters. These would become the main way people die.
Interstellar travel will be easily possible... with technology available soon
If enough smart people live for hundreds of years we may finally be able to solve so many problems, our civilisation might become *actually* sustainable.
With all that said, super longevity may have unusual effects on human psychology, it may mean we crawl into a hole and do nothing for irrational fear of accidental death, it may change society in ways we couldn't guess. We may also become bored of living, euthanasia may become one of the leading ways we die.
Imagine millions, billions, living this way.
This wasn't a question really, but if de Grey wants to comment on what this all means in the big (the REALLY big) picture it would interesting.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
If people live to be 1000 years old, do you think they'll eventually learn the difference between ITS and IT'S, and that plurals don't need an apostrophe? Or that "alot" is not a word ,"lots" doesn't take an apostrophe and "no one" really is two words?
Mostly random stuff.
You've proposed that the accumulation of non-cancerous mutations to genes don't contribute to aging in a normal lifespan, because there are tens of trillions of cells in the human body, and a significant fraction of them would have to be damaged to cause trouble. But it only takes a few mutations in a single cell to kill someone through cancer. So we don't have to worry about non-cancerous mutations killing us until a very long time after the average age at which we get cancer (70s or 80s in humans).
As no current technology is capable of repairing DNA damage, this theory is a lynchpin of SENS (and any probably any rejuvenation strategy).
Why is it do you think that this theory is not generally accepted by the scientific community, and what sort of experimental evidence would be needed to help change their minds?
Would you say you are investigating how to stop and revert aging out of curiosity, or would you say your motivation comes from the natural fear of aging and dying that most humans have?
Do you think that death is a symptom of the increased metabolic complexity of certain organisms ?
I mean, if a tree is 4,000 years old, did it managed to get this far by having better self healing mechanisms or by simply not performing some damaging metabolic operations ?
Wouldn't you say dieing is a survival trait? That we, as a race, need individuals to die, or we risk extinction because of in-adaptability?
Shachar
There are organisms capable of living effectively without aging and, therefore, able to reproduce for a much longer period of time than those that do. Why aren't they omnipresent ? Why didn't evolution discarded aging ?
Imagine a hypothetical organism that at some point breached into another species by developing a larger pseudopod that allowed it to move much faster but also triggered a death mechanism in it.
I mean, I can understand that for a cheetah, it's probably better to be 20% faster than to live 20% longer, but I'm not talking about shortened life expectancy, I'm comparing certain death to amortality.
Dying and aging seems a major set back for reproduction, I can't think of a competitive advantage that would surpass it.
Cancer Cured? Granulocytes Treatment Worked 100 Percent In Mice But Will It Work In Humans?
but I have the heart of a 20 year old athlete. Its in a jar, on my sedk.
What is your feeling on how a global economic slowdown might affect your funding prospects? With the crimes being perpetrated against those scientists who use animals on the rise, do you foresee the rise of a similar movement (aside, tacitly, from the religious) against mankind attaining potential immortality? If life extension technology matures, what percentage of humanity will be able to buy it? Is your field employing molecular dynamics simulations to research out viable methods for moving genes out of mitochondria? If so, might you consider making this work a distributed computing project over the internet? Clearly, many countries will advance, unhindered by religious troglodytes who push creation science and seek universal death--the Rapture--by means of a Middle East war. Do you see the US faltering into an idiocracy? Given nuclear proliferation, overpopulation, scarcity of resources, religious and culture conflict, the potential rise of a killer bug in the slums of our world, and its easy transport via jets to every corner of the world, the Matthew effect, not just in terms of wealth, but in terms of education, global warming, climate change, food production threats,...,and all the ways these pressures synergize, what do you think our odds are as a species? Can you point out a tipping point (or points) towards are demise which we should work to prevent? A.A. Los Alamos, NM
Tell Lazarus Long... his mom is HOT!
What is the status of lipofuscin remediation? How close are we to succesful enzyme delivery to break it down?
If human life could be extended 1000 years, whats to keep it from becoming a secret used to enslave the human race or split it into a slave and master race?
Because all people are not good, it is a blessing that death prevents evil from getting the upper hand on all of humanity.
Just because some people are evil doesn't mean death should be inflicted on the majority of humanity, who are not evil.
You don't seem to have any faith in the good part of humanity to overcome the bad part, but historically that is exactly what has happened. The absolutist "divine right" monarchies that were ubiquitous 9000 to 10,000 years ago have steadily given way to even-handed application of law and to governments which recognize the value of everyone's humanity and not just "royalty" or similar. Slavery has been abolished, logic and philosophy formalized into mathematics and science as well. It is much less common now than in the past for a single tyrant to subjugate the rest because it is much harder for them to do so, thanks to the emancipation of humanity at large. "Good" is winning; it has been winning the overall struggle, despite losing some battles, for 10,000 years and counting. Humans do well when they turn on those who would exploit them, and the same effect has been observed extensively among other social animals.
We know good and evil when we see it, and the good guys have more power than the bad guys. The power Stalin had over the Soviet Union rested not in Stalin or his evilness, but on the system of government in place; it was an institutionalized police state, and that outlived Stalin by nearly 40 years. It is clearly not the case that the tyranny of evil people hinges on the specific lifespans of individuals.
If life is worth living, it is perverse to inflict death on the majority. It is not death, but the very goodness of humanity that prevents "evil from getting the upper hand". Death is not a blessing, but a curse, if you want to put it in such terms.
After holding a position (for instance belief in a scientific theory) for a long time - people become invested in it. If it has become profitable or they have achieved a position of power from it, they have a very strong interest in maintaining the status quo.
It is said that scientists don't change their mind, a new theory comes out and eventually all of the old fogies holding onto the outdated theories retire or die, and are replaced with people who follow the new theories.
If people live for a very long time, maintaining their position and influence - it is likely that society, science and art will stagnate. You only have to listen to baby boomer music critics/radio station DJs who say the best songs are from the 1960s to know this is true.
Cultural evolution will stop or slow, and due to having a finite world birth control must be instituted to allow so many people living so long. Thus biological evolution which depends on reproduction and death will also end.
I accept my death, and will move aside for those following me to have their go. I accept that I am not the pinnacle of existence and will pass on what I know, prepare the next generation and then stand back and see if they can do better.
So my question is - why should we want to hog the ride?
We could use the good old proven technique of evolution (Just helping natural selection along a bit)
Keep men constantly supplied with fertile women throughout their lifetime.
Geezers who stay fit and healthy longer will then have more children than those who age less well. Over the course of ten thousand years, a lifetime fertility difference of a few percent really adds up, slowly but surely selecting for a longer lifespan.
It is a fallacy to state that human life spans have doubled. They have not. The AVERAGE life span has...
Most of this paragraph is correct, except for this part. It is not a fallacy to state that human life spans have doubled, because the AVERAGE life span is exactly what we're talking about when we talk about "lifespan" in the vernacular. It is unequivocally true that humans now live much longer than they once did, even if though (as you correctly point out) the longest human lives have not increased.
Some cultures, such as those whose histories we find recorded in the Bible, relate that people at one time did live for centuries.
It is also true that other cultures, such as those recorded in other "holy" books or the accounts of other chroniclers in other places and times, record outlandish things. One such account is of a prophet riding a flying horse all the way to heaven. Another such story is of a flood that covered the entire earth, and that a single family collected one male and one female of each of tens of millions of species of plants and animals, most of which we haven't even discovered after hundreds of years of formal biological science by tens of thousands of trained scientists.. We see no evidence of such a global flood in the geological record *ever*, let alone in the last 10,000 years. We have no flying horses today, nor do we have any evidence any ever existed, and when we send our own flying machines high in the sky they do not find heaven, but the immensity of space beyond Earth.
These cultures kept extensive, detailed genealogies giving names, lineages and age at death.
Do not mistake detail for correctness; they are not the same. Any story can be highly detailed while having intimate, marginal, or no relation to historical fact.
If we take these records at their face values, the recorded life spans dropped precipitously from centuries down to the maximum of around 120 years, where it is still is today.
We have no reason to believe that these stories are accurate "records", and we should not take them at face value. (120 years is about 42 years higher than the present worldwide average, by the way.)
There is good reason to believe that these records are truthful history.
What a delusion. You're not in touch with physical reality if you honestly, deep down, believe the stories in the Bible are literally true, especially with as much evidence as we have of their falseness!
After all what reasons or ulterior motives could we ascribe to the recorders of these histories? Why they would falsely or erroneously write such genealogies?
Followers of other "holy" books can try the same argument; it's a broken argument. You've posted several times in this discussion that you think there is a danger of tyranny of evil. Lies and deception are perfect tools for acquiring power for both good and evil purposes; hasn't it occurred to you that it is in the best interests of these writers to exaggerate reality and make up impressive-sounding things outright (to lie) to impress people who don't or can't think critically? What about honest errors in recording what happens, such as attributing a divine cause to an otherwise ill-understood natural event? What about their personal biases? They didn't even have to be intentionally inaccurate for their writings to be filled with errors.
The question is: Did Methuselah REALLY live 969 years, as recorded, or is that simply untrue, fictitious imaginations? Was Noah a real person in history and did he really die at the ripe old age of 950?
We have ways to answer these questions. Our lifespans, like those of all organisms, are a result of the ability of their DNA to copy itself reliably, which is related (a bit tenuously) to metabolism, and so on. We have fossil records. We have arc
...as opposed to all those mechagerontologists out there...
Isn't this something like the mythical 'fat pill'? As opposed to, say, diet and exercise?
What do you say to those who smoke a pack a day, have BMIs way over 25, have constant unprotected sex, and say 'Gosh, I want to live to be 1000 in perfectly good health!'?
Why do people who want to live 1000 years simultaneously engage in self-destructive behaviour on a daily basis?
I have what I call the "900 Year Diet" which involves eating one meal a day (usually in the evening or before bed). I have always tended toward 1 meal per day since a child. As a toddler, I refused to eat anything but my mother's breast milk until I was almost 3 years old; with day care this meant abstaining from eating all day until I could nurse with my mother in the evenings.
My question is: In 100 years, when I and other 900-Year-Dieters are still alive, would you like to meet up with us somewhere to celebrate our longevity together?
Fast for life (extension)!
-=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-
Research seldom goes where it is supposed to. I can see the first stage of this investigation might be to find out if our bodies have natural clocks that cause the system to shut down at a certain age, and try to turn them off, or even put the clock back so we can repair damage as babies can regrow fingers. We have the advantage over natural living systems so we can work co-operatively to fight disease and repair damage.
If we are using this advantage, then long life will most likely be achieved by a continuous process where our bodies are upgraded and repaired rather than a once-off immortality jab of 1950's science fiction. This can take us in many directions, from the vision of untroubled long life, to an existence like the Struldbrugs in Gulliver's travels.
Before we go too far down this road, do you have criteria for what sorts of longevity are acceptable and what are not, or do we play it as it comes?
If Aubrey could talk about current competitors in Mprize and the future of the competition. What methods are competitors using and when can we expect new records.
I'm a computer scientist. What can I do, as a community member interested on this subject, to help on longevity research?
var sig = function() { sig(); }
The beard is what makes him immortal. Clearly he is a wizard.
cat
Considering that evolution has favored longevity through Calorie Restriction so that the species can proliferate after famines (during which people are less potent for procreation), could it be possible that drugs that mimic calorie restriction will have impotency as a side effect?
Heroes die once, cowards live longer.
My impression is that the world is not ready for people to live 200-1,000 years longer. Especially if you consider that a certain percentage of these people will not be healthy for their extended years and will need considerable Government support. Our current society cannot support unhealthy individuals living for hundreds of years. Not to mention the fact that we're running out of room and running out of planetary resources with even our current global population. And we're really not close to spreading out beyond planet Earth. My question... Is this the wrong time to start trying to lengthen our lives?
When we do finally determine how to stop aging, or even reverse it, how do you think that will impact the overall world population? It seems to me that it will have to be priced so exceptionally high that only an elite few can afford it or we will have to go to a China-like rule of only one child per family. I have to applaud your efforts in this field --> the human race could have definitely benefited greatly if some of the great minds and rulers had not succumbed to old age!
Charlie Morgan
Supposing your longevity research ends with a resounding success, have you considered the effect it would have on dictators all over the world? In other words, how would you defend yourself against people who doubt you are even asking the right question, given that we can't hope to 'engineer' morals and ethics?
Hypothetically, what if the research of yourself and others came to a point where the mal-effects of aging could be slowed to a crawl or stopped completely but there is still no progress in reversing it? What would you recommend for those whom are already aged to the point they have a very low quality of life? Bedridden? In constant pain? Stop the aging? Remain in that state hoping for a future method to reverse the aging? Or just let go, the last generation to die of old age? If the rest of us are no longer aging and happy with our current condition would there be enough financial incentive to continue researching a way to reverse aging for those whom are already old? What if we reach that point and you are suffering an advanced state of aging? Hopefully we will go straight to reversing aging without hitting a point where we stop it without reversing it but what if.....
In 1000 years, how long will you be telling us you can extend life for?
If the medical technology to live forever existed today would it be affordable? Will the rich live forever while the poor die the same as always? If so how many generations would it take before the poor begin to look expendable to the rich. They're just going to die anyway, let's use them for... How about prisoners? Will an inmate with a life sentence get this treatment? If not, it's really a slow death sentence. If so, will society pay to keep a prisoner healthy for milenia?
It has been known for a while that lifespan can be increased with a special diet.
Looking at plants where metabolic rates are low and lifespans are often enormous, I started wondering whether it would be possible to increase animal lifespan by reducing oxygen intake
(from 21 to 18% in the air they breathe, for example).
This would slow down the metabolic rate and oxidation, and hopefully increase the lifespan.
Has this been tried yet in animals and what is your opinion about this?
Thank you.
Aubrey,
Have you considered how the world/society would change if you were successful?
Would treatments be available to all people, not just the rich?
If many, many people could live long fruitful lives, what about population and earth's limited resources?
What about evil men? Isn't it great when the Hitlers and Stalins and Pol Pots of the world leave us? If you are successful, we could look forward to despots that are around for millennia.
I am not saying that I hope you aren't successful, just keep it a secret between me and you.
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
There is historical proof that people used to live for 600, 800, or 1000 years. See the first 15 pages of your motel Bible. This research may be interesting, as it supposedly restores us to our sinless state as God created us. Interesting.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
I'm no medical expert, but I have one question that I think needs a solid answer before you can say people can live a thousand years.
The problem I see is that in order to live to a thousand years you need to stop brain cells from dieing. There is no mechanism to replace brain and spinal cord cells. There simply is no transport mechanism to remove dead brain cells or spinal cord cells.
So, in order to live a "youthful" 1000 years either: your skull would need to grow to accommodate new brain cells (which would be another hurdle to overcome), you would need to come up with a technological way of removing dead brain cells, or you would need to prevent them from dieing altogether.
So what research is being done to tackle this issue?
Not that I buy into any of your "white tower" arguments on availability of the cures or equitable distribution. I suspect it will be used primarily by the rich and powerful, with some benefit also to the middle classes and likely to be denied the poor and in totalitarian societies. This is equivalent to the power corrupts argument. Here's my prediction. the Longevity cure will be given to those with proven value to society ( The rich, the powerful, the scientists [including medicine], the military and the police). It is the perfect ingredient for a 1984 world. This is one possibility you didn't really cover in your arguments.
Can we expect to hear from Enoch the Red regarding your apparent delvings into the Solomonic gold and the Elixir Vitae?
Given current medical technology, is there a clearinghouse of life extension practices that can be consumed by laypeople? i.e. purge free radicals, etc.
This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
Do you accept volunteers for guinea pigs?
(hmmm extending my life 10x fold could be great...)
I had a hamster that managed to live approximately 5 and a half years. Bud went completely bald, and started trying to bite people that picked him up. Anyway, two questions:
- Can you explain possible reasons for his 2x lifespan?
- Are hamster's lifespans artificially shortened by captivity, and by how much?
- Is there a greater variability in the age of hamsters vs humans?
Why just a 1,000 years?
Why not infinity, if we can find a way to preserve our minds from the failings of decay and recycle our cells in a never ending bounty of youth.
Is there a way to volunteer as guinea pig for your experiments?
Is an individual life really all that special? Is the quest for immortality the ultimate act of narcissism? Or is it simply the evolution of medical science?
A lot of hype lately has been put onto calorie restriction as a form of life-extension, I know that the calorie restriction community is greatly intertwined into your research, can you comment on calorie restriction as a means to your ultimate goal. If you consider it to be a valid life-extension strategy?
Would you expect the aging process we currently live with to be stretched, extending life. Or would one live a young vigorous life for 1000 years and die as the body wore out?
This would be a waste of ask slashdot time, because this question is already dealt with repeatedly on his many FAQs on the website. There are plenty of answers, for example this one. (And of course they've thought of this one, silly)
My favorite answer is not in that current video FAQ item, so I'll explain it here. Basically, if you think death by aging is a major contributor to the population question, you don't understand the math.
The key point is that if there are more than 2 children born per person, births dominate the population equation because they are exponential. If you have 2 children per adult (= 4 per couple) and a 20-year generation time, then when you are 80 you are responsible for adding 14 people to the population via your descendents. (2 kids, 4 grandkids, 8 great-grandkids). If you die, you've only removed 6.7% of the population you're responsible for.
Keeping people alive from age 80 to age 100 only therefore increases this population by 6.7%, where births are responsible for the other 93.3%. Keeping them alive from 100 to 120 only increases the population by 3.3%, and keeping them alive from 120 to 140 only increases it by 1.6%. By the time you're extending someone's life to age 1000, he or she is only a miniscule slice of the population wedge that includes her and her descendants.
Reducing the birth rate from 2 per person to 1.5 per person, OTOH, really dramatically reduces the population. So it's much easier and more important to control the population that way, instead of by insisting people continue to get old and die, which is kind of cruel to the people who are already alive who would prefer to keep living, you know.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
What life extension methods does he perform on himself currently (obviously calorie restriction)?
What are his feelings about the efficacy resveratrol supplements?
From what I read on the Internet, you seem to focus mainly on biotechnology to achieve this 1000 years lifespan.
Do you believe this is possible without a
technological singularity ( in case it does not happend ) and advanced nanotechnology, only by biotechnological means?
Shouldn't you also be launching a concurrent cultural/political movement to alter certain social conventions, so that when we finally achieve 1000 year life spans we aren't also doomed to, say, 1000 year marriages?
My question: I understand treating the physical symptoms as a multi-faceted disease, but what about the psychological aspects? Ethically I see nothing wrong with extending life, but have you received any flak from any religious or scientific circles that what you're doing is fundamentally wrong?
Thanks for the reply. OMG why haven't I heard about this (Brooke Greenberg) ? She deserves her own thread ! Please moderate this up, this subject needs to be discussed.
With the science available currently, what should Homer Simpson be doing now, starting today, in nutritional and behavioral terms, to live, not 1000 years, but 100 years in good health (by good health I mean that it should be able to run a marathon and win chess games when he is 100 years old).
There are many problems with the spinal cord as one ages. Can you list the ones you have considered and whether/how SENS addresses them?
Scar tissue, tendinopathy, and recurring muscle strain are major obstacles for the restoration of the aging athlete. What is in store for aging athletes with respect to the above maladies in your version of the future? What is happening now in science with respect to the above maladies, that makes you think they will be conquerable (if in fact you do)?
What's your best guess as to how much money it will take to get a full suite of SENS therapies working in a mouse?
this is not a sig
What's your best guess as to how long it will take to get a full suite of SENS therapies working in a mouse?
this is not a sig
Are there any efforts under way to target arterial, and other, plaques, and remove them? More specifically, has anyone tried 'painting' plaques with a chemical that the body's own scavanger system has been sensitised to in order thay they can target plaques for removal? Heart desease is a major killer, and something like this seems a good research topic with many benefits for everyone. Plaques, in general, are a major bane in later life. In a related question, does chelation therapy, in your opinion, work? Oral, or intravenous? Pat
chronic cardiovascular infection has been fingered as a predictor of eventual heart failure. it all adds up, from everyday pathogens like the plaque on our teeth to nastier stuff like pneumonia. (references omitted.)
basically, it's like those old galvanized pipes in houses, that get so rusted inside you don't even want to install a sink-disposal-unit, for fear of blockage.
unlike houses, animal piping cannot be yanked and replaced, yet.
to prevent further pipe damage, we could try to improve the immune system, but let's assume that remains a battle of attrition.
so, what engineering could be done on this system, to intervene the normal aging processes?
Beats me, every single one of my replies in this thread has been ignored. Oh well, back to trolling, I guess!
Mostly random stuff.
What was the singular thing that made you personally change an AI research career into doing research and later advocacy on ending aging?
How long until it reaches the shelves at the local supermarket ? Will we all be dead by then ? How much would it cost ?
If a human life spanned 1000 years, what do you think would be the ramifications on human reproduction given the rate we are able to reproduce, do you think there would have to be criteria to be able to have children, and then a limit set on how many an individual or couple could produce in their lifetime.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!