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

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

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

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

Comments

Re:How very nice for them.

[gl4ss]

I don't know about you..

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

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

This is about the money

[houghi]

They just want to get the money from the zillionaires. My aunt was at one point the oldest person alive in the world.
When I asked her how that felt, she told me that somebody had to be the oldest and by pure luck, this time it was her.

She gave her body to science and several things have been found thanks to that. It also encouraged a search for more people above 100 to donate their body to do more research.

She not only gave her body. She also insited that the outcome was for others to learn. She opensourced her body.

If people are able to get older, you talk about the species, not only about a happy few (just ask Steve Jobs). And no, I do not think I will be getting that old. She was just a statistical anomaly.