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Category: life extension

A conspiracy theory article that I think is spreading semi-fake news (but it’s interesting to see how some people react to #transhumanism):

While the title of this article may sound like it belongs on a strange and dark science fiction movie, it doesn’t. Unfortunately, it seems that as the technological world continues to advance, the more the old adage ‘the truth is stranger than fiction’ becomes true.

Throughout the past year or so, we have heard Google’s leading futurist tell us that it will one day be possible to live forever. His belief is that it will start with nanobots in the human body which would work to defeat deadly disease, in place of our immune system. Kurzweil maintains that the human immune system is inadequate and that,

“Your immune system, for example, does a poor job on cancer,” he told Playboy.” It thinks cancer is you. It doesn’t treat cancer as an enemy. It also doesn’t work well on retroviruses. It doesn’t work well on things that tend to affect us later in life because it didn’t select for longevity.”

He also believes that the nanobots will enhance humanity and bring us to a point we could never have reached on our own. “We’re going to be funnier. We’re going to be sexier. We’re going to be better at expressing loving sentiment.”

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An article discussing why extreme risk aversion deriving from indefinite lifespans is neither very likely, nor rational.

There’s a theory suggesting that, if we could live indefinitely, we might become extremely risk-averse. Presently, regardless of when you die, you ‘only’ lose a handful of decades of life at worst, because you would have died of old age eventually anyway. However, the reasoning goes, if you could live for an indefinitely long time, your untimely death would cost you no less than eternity; the conclusion is that, in order to avoid such an unimaginable loss, people wouldn’t dare taking even the most insignificant risks, such as crossing the street, ultimately making their own lives quite miserable.

The problem with this argument is that it hinges on a flawed assumption. The assumption is that we dare taking any risks at all only because we know that in a few decades at best we’re going to be dead anyway. Why do you take a plane for a holiday at the Antipodes? Because you’re going to die anyway when you’re old. Why do you go on a rollercoaster ride? Because the reaper would get you sooner or later anyway. Why do you go out without an umbrella even though it looks like it might rain? Because pneumonia would cut your life only a few decades shorter. Note that this argument also answers the age-old question, ‘Why did the chicken cross the street?’ Because YOLO.

This is not how smart people (or chickens) think. The question is one of magnitude of benefits and risks of a certain course of action. Consider the case of John, 40 years old, taking a plane from New York to Madrid for a two-week holiday. There is a chance the plane might fall into the Atlantic Ocean during the flight, in which case John would die. The chance isn’t very big, but it’s not zero nonetheless. If the plane doesn’t fall, then John gets his holiday (the benefits); however, if the plane falls, not only does John not get his holiday, but he also loses his life. At age 40, John isn’t exactly a youngster any more, but he does have some 40 years of life left, though. While the perceived value of the holiday and the remaining 40 years of life are subjective, it is quite reasonable to say that two weeks in Madrid aren’t worth losing 40 years of life.

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Another LEAF interview from the International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit in Madrid with Didier Coeurnelle of Heales.

LEAF director Elena Milova was recently at the International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit in Madrid. During the conference she caught up with life extension advocate Didier Coeurnelle.

In this interview Didier discusses his projects and shares advice to the community regarding what kind of activities can help foster progress in the development of rejuvenation biotechnology.

Didier is one of the most active members of the European life extension community, co-president of HEALES (Healthy Life Extension Society), vice-president of French Transhumanist Association Technoprog, and a founding member of the International Longevity Alliance. He is also a long-term member of the local ecology movement. Didier is currently a lawyer in a Belgian federal government agency for social security. Didier is the main organizer of the biennial scientific conference Eurosymposium on Healthy Ageing, held in Brussels, Belgium.

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I’m scheduled to give a short speech here tomorrow in Los Angeles. I’ve been told it’s a free event with fun festivities and food. My talk should be sometime between 12:30PM and 1:30PM. Join me in celebrating seniors and telling them about the importance of maximum longevity.

Free Food! Free Classic Car Show! Free Concert! Free Giveaways! Free Entertainment! Father’s Day Tribute! Veterans Tribute! Free Seminars! Surprise Special Guest!!!!!

Saturday, June 17th 2017, from 11am to 3pm at the “Expo” Ahmanson Senior Center, “Next to the LA Coliseum”, 3990 Bill Robertson Ln, Los Angeles CA 90037 - Seniors on the Move Today and Care Match America, along with many Partners, will host the first “Love a Senior Day!”

Bring your Grandparents, Mom, Dad, and Friends, to this Event! Joining us: A “Who’s Who” of caring Dignitaries, Political Leaders, your favorite Business, and amazing Senior Organizations!

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The story is on bringing people back to life with radical science and it talks about transhumanism and cryonics. This is the most widespread story I’ve seen on #transhumanism in Eastern Europe yet. https://tenyek.hu/kulfold/237876_felelesztik-az-agyhalottakat.html

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On the 9th of June we teamed up with the Major Mouse Testing Program (MMTP) for a live stream longevity panel on the MMTP Facebook page. The panel included Dr. Alexandra Stolzing, Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Dr. Oliver Medvedik, MMTP coordinators Steve Hill and Elena Milova, Lifespan.io President Keith Comito, and one of the most active contributors Alen Akhabaev. The event was one of the rewards from the MMTP campaign launched on Lifespan.io last year.

During the first section the panelists discuss the science and progress in the field, touching upon senescent cell therapy with senolytics, its progress and limitations, stem cells therapies and other promising interventions to slow down and potentially reverse age-related damage to health.

The second section moves to the discussion of the existing bottlenecks in advocacy, and what the members of the community can do to promote and popularize rejuvenation biotechnology among the general public more effectively.

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New story about the recent book on #transhumanism To Be a Machine:

For the (very very quickly) upcoming Love & Death Issue, I had the chance to interview the journalist, Mark O’Connell, who is the author most recently of To Be A Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death. He also wrote that amazing piece in the New York Times Magazine a few months ago about Zoltan Istvan, the transhumanist who ran for president and drove across the country in a coffin-shaped bus. O’Connell’s new book reads like a travelogue among characters like Zoltan, futuristic types (mostly from California) that O’Connell describes with a charming blend of cynicism and aloof interest. Like an agnostic amidst a group of “true believers,” O’Connell is both repelled by and drawn in by the belief system that transhumanism proffers.

If you’re unfamiliar, transhumanism is the movement that asserts an immortal future thanks to technology and science. As O’Connell describes it, it is the technological teleology of salvation: “a projection whereby intelligent life takes over all matter in the universe, leading to a cosmological singularity.” In other words, the computers we’ve built, the science we’re discovering, will free us from our mortal coil, our bodies. We will live eternally in new bodies, machines unconstrained by sickness, vulnerability and death.

You can see how O’Connell hears the religious bells ringing. But he also, throughout the book, describes this paradox: that this futurism is just a new iteration of a very old idea. Despite all the science fiction lingo used to describe this singularity (“longevity escape velocity,” “whole brain emulation,” “cyborgs”), what we really have is the apex of Enlightenment thought, and before that, Gnostic thought. It is the idea that we are liberated by our minds, that certain refinements of knowledge will set us free.

Beneath the talk of future technologies, I could hear the murmur of ancient ideas. We were talking about the transmigration of souls, eternal return, reincarnation. Nothing is ever new. Nothing ever truly dies, but is reborn in a new form, a new language, a new substrate.

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You may not be familiar with the work we do at Lifespan.io and how we are supporting rejuvenation biotech research using the power of crowdfunding. Here is a short video talking about the importance of supporting breakthrough technology and the work we do at Lifespan.io.

Connect with us on social media to stay informed:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/LifespanIO?sub_confirmation=1

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LifespanIO #CrowdfundTheCure #LifespanIO

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Sinclair lab enters human trials for DNA repair this year!

DNA is a critical part of the cell, it is the instruction manual for building cells. Whilst DNA is well protected within the cell nucleus damage does occur, therefore DNA repair is absolutely essential for cell function, cell survival and the prevention of cancer. The good news is cells are able to repair damaged DNA but the bad news is that this ability declines with aging for reasons as yet to be fully understood.

An exciting new study by researchers led by Dr. David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School shows a part of the process that enables cells to repair damaged DNA involving the signalling molecule NAD. This offers insight into how the body repairs DNA and why that repair system declines as we age. Before we get into the new research study let’s take a look at how DNA damage relates to aging and what NAD is.

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Whilst looking through recent papers about biomarkers and this recent open access paper crossed my desk. The paper is the latest in a line of top to bottom reviews of aging biomarkers for humans. With companies like Unity Biotechnology and the David Sinclair lab entering human clinical trials later this year for senescent cell removal and DNA repair respectively, the development of effective biomarkers to measure how someone is aging and how therapies effect that are a matter of urgency.

Given that there are various causes of aging and that rejuvenation therapies will generally only target one or two of these processes, the first therapies will likely only be partially effective. The aging processes are all interlinked as well so affecting one may effect others, hence there is a need for a comprehensive panel of biomarkers in order for researchers to prove the efficacy of therapies.

Another thing to consider with a therapy such as senescent cell removal is, whilst you can measure how effective it is at removing senescent cells (to a reasonable degree using β-galactosidase etc…) being able to demonstrate the wider benefits of doing so is trickier. So the challenge here is to find a suitable range of biomarkers that can provide a good level of proof that rejuvenation has occurred when using these therapies. This means various measures of functional age and health are required, and these measures should be something the research community as a whole agree upon as being suitable.

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