Last year I speculated that a simple form of life extension therapy would be available within a decade. With less than nine years left to go, I stand by this prediction. Aging is a very complicated problem. But age therapy is coming soon because the beginning of the answer to aging will be much simpler […]
Life Extension enthusiasts (and I’m one) always talk about how short life is. But in a world where body size correlates closely with life span, we humans live a lot longer than we should expect. By that rule we should live about as long as pigs. In his answer to the question “why do animals […]
Last year Phil wrote a post entitled “Death Sucks.” No argument here. It does. But for some reason there’s no shortage of people who ask, “Why would you want to live indefinitely?” Aubrey de Grey thinks it’s a fair question, but he has a good answer. You don’t have to decide today to live 1000 […]
FuturePundit takes a look at research indicating that alternate-day fasting may produce the same life-extension benefits for mice as calorie restriction: A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, raises such a possibility. It shows that healthy mice given only 5 percent fewer calories than mice allowed to eat freely experienced a […]
Leon Kass has an obvious bias against life extension. This is no state secret. So when Kass announced last week that he is abandoning the “tiresome question” (whether a cloned blastocyst is a person) in favor of an offensive strategy, Phil and I jumped on the logical inconsistency: If the ethical question of “is it […]
I’m late in getting something up on this, but it’s big news: In a move that will push the Methuselah Foundation’s M Prize over the $1 million mark, Dr. William Haseltine, biotech pioneer of Human Genome Sciences fame, has joined the Three Hundred, a group of individuals who pledge to donate $1000 per year to […]
Virginia Postrel: If there’s one thing Leon Kass isn’t, it’s pro-life. Heh. You go, girl. Postrel refers to a Washington Post article (annoying registration required) outlining The Luddite General’s new “offensive” on cloning and human embryo research. She comes to the above rather startling conclusion by pointing out that Kass is more interested in preventing […]
Sure, this seems to be good news, but what’s really the point in adding years to our lives? Healthy life-extension advocate Reason has some thoughts: What would I do with a thousand-year lifespan? I’d probably spend some of it trying to find a way to live longer. But I would not otherwise lack for things […]
The CDC is reporting a 3.6-month increase in life expectancy for children born in 2003 over children born just a year earlier. Those born in 2003 can expect to live 77.6 years on average, up from 77.3 years in 2002 and a record high for U.S. life expectancy, according to preliminary figures from the Centers […]
Reason over at Fight Aging! (a blog I’ve been neglecting lately; I promise to do better) directs us to a passionate new blog called Longevity First, where Jay raises some fundamental questions: Where Is the Rage? Every year, over 50 million people die. Over 30 million of those deaths were not caused by murder, or […]