Do we have to get old and die? by MinuteEarth
Adam Rifkin stashed this in Longevity!
Stashed in: #TED, Science!, Awesome, Best Videos, Singularity!, The Internet is my religion., Life Death Life Death, Aging, Favorites, Biology, Jellyfish, WHY, Aging, Genomics, RSA Animate, Longevity, CRISPR, AMA
Top Reddit comment:
Things to look at for people interested in associated ideas/technologies:
TED talk on aging and telomeres
Are telomeres the key to aging and cancer?
Short MIT explanation of CRISPR CAS9 (Genome editing technique)
Longer and more technical understanding of CRISPR from Professor Jennifer Doudna from UC Berkeley
Related subreddits:
Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence: http://sens.org
Aubrey de Grey, the director of SENS and one of the foremost experts on ageing and the road to ending it, and his AMA.
Another good Reddit comment:
After watching this video I thought to myself, why can't I just take a telomere regenerating pill and never grow old? We know how it works in a rockfish, just do it to me! But apparently it's more complicated than that and while reading up on Aubrey de Grey and his SENS Research Foundation I came across this simple explanation (source):
Negligible Senescence is a term originally coined by Dr. Caleb Finch of the University of Southern California. It refers essentially to a condition in which senescence (the progressive slide into sickness and frailty with age) is negligible -- that is, so small as to not merit consideration. He used this phrase to describe animals like the rockfish, lobster, and hydra, which simply do not seem to senesce. No matter how long these creatures are studied, they seem to have the same physical capacities. Moreover, their risk of death remains constant, rather than progressively increasing as a result of age-related pathologies – because those pathologies simply do not develop.
"Humans, meanwhile, do not naturally possess "negligible senescence”, and our bodies are so differently configured from those of the rockfish, lobster, and hydra that there is no feasible way to “transfer” this property between species. Our mission to develop rejuvenation biotechnologies is based on the notion that it may be possible to apply the principles of regenerative medicine to the cellular and molecular damage of aging. In short, we think it ought to be possible to engineer solutions to age-related disease that stave off pathology indefinitely – such that, like the rockfish, lobster, and hydra – we are able to get old without becoming sick or frail."
It'll be a little while longer before a daily multivitamin prevents my body from becoming sick and old...
5:36 PM Jun 29 2015