Lifeboat Foundation

Some people object we shouldn’t cure ageing because it is natural. Well, so is malaria, for example…

You know, I may even agree ageing is ‘natural’. If we define natural as something that happens spontaneously, without external intervention, as a consequence of chemical and physical interactions, then yes, ageing is natural. This is not a great argument in favour of ageing, though, because there are very many perfectly natural things that are really bad for you, ranging on the badness spectrum pretty much anywhere from ‘mildly upsetting’ to ‘catastrophically apocalyptic’: mosquito bites, genetic diseases, viral diseses, earthquakes, tsunamis, stars going nova, being eaten by lions, cancer, a pidgeon pooing on the fancy suit you rented for your wedding precisely when you say ‘I do’, bacterial infections, and so on. So, okay, maybe ageing is natural. So what? It is also the number one cause of suffering and diseases in the western world. Frankly, I don’t give a damn if it is natural or not. It’s still pretty bad.

Speaking of rejuvenation being not natural, I could nitpick a lot. I could ask, what is ‘not natural’? Is it anything human made? Then what about things made by animals? For example, if a building is ‘not natural’, what about a beehive then? Natural or not? Given we humans have a natural tendency to tweak things around to make them work the way we want, wouldn’t rejuvenation be our natural response to the problem of ageing, just like medicines are our natural response to the problem of diseases?

Continue reading “Ageing is natural. Rejuvenation is not” »

TDP-43 Protien tied to Alzheimers according to a Mayo Clinic Study.

Since the time of Dr. Alois Alzheimer himself, two proteins (beta-amyloid (Aβ) and tau) have become tantamount to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). But a Mayo Clinic study challenges the perception that these are the only important proteins accounting for the clinical features of the devastating disease.

Continue reading “TDP43 and Alzheimer’s Study” »

In Brief:

• A drug seems to be showing signs of reversing the effects of aging in dogs and mice. Studies are being conducted on the effectiveness in humans.
• The drug has some major side effects linked to it and there is no guarantee it will be as effective in humans.

Aging is a spectre we all must face one day…but is this the way that it will always be? Medical researchers hope to delay or even reverse the onset of aging, and some are already claiming that they’ve made inroads to immortality.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6A1knkZiysQ

Clearing out senescent cells could lead to better fitness and health as we age.

From around age forty we start to lose muscle mass due to various aging processes, one of these processes is the accumulation of senescent cells. Senescent cells are simply cells that have become damaged or have reached their maximum number of divisions. Normally these cells are shut down by a kind of self destruct program inside the cell, ready to be disposed of by the immune system.

Continue reading “Senolytics – Taking Out The Trash Might Keep You Fit And Healthy” »

Researchers experiment with gene deletion.

Are you an avid supporter of aging research and a keen longevity activist?
The Biogerontology Research Foundation is offering select summer internships for talented individuals. You’d join a passionate and supportive team in researching diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic strategies; advising a panel of investors in developing a roadmap to promote longevity science and related technologies across the globe.

The advertised positions are 3 month internships, with the possibility of continuing afterwards. Free accommodation will be provided for in London, alongside a negotiable salary.

The Biogerontology Research Foundation is a UK based think tank dedicated to aging research and accelerating its application worldwide.

Continue reading “Aging Research Internships Available 7” »

This particular type of gene therapy gave mice younger bodies and 30% longer lifespans.

I’m aware of a number of the world’s most important publications soon to be covering it. As a result, I encourage all of you that are in leadership and public positions to temper your political perspectives and posts in social media (whatever side they fall on), and instead to focus on pushing life extension and transhumanist themes forward. We should strive to show that we are united by our aims and love of radical science and technology, and not divided by politics. If pursued correctly, #transhumanism can grow into a multi-billion person movement that will ensure global prosperity, protect liberties, and eliminate biological death and most suffering of humanity. Thanks for considering this! And please let others know. #future

Science isn’t the easiest thing to understand especially biology, but are we getting the message right about rejuvenation biotechnology? Reason at Fight aging delves into the issues and offers commentary about our recent blog article at LEAF.

For those of us who immediately understand, at first recognition, that the opportunity to live a longer life in good health would be a fantastic thing, and in fact so wondrous that we should jump up and do something to make it happen, it is a continual puzzle that we find ourselves in a minority. How is it that we live in a world in which the majority simply doesn’t care, or if prompted on the topic, declares their desire to age, suffer, and die on the present schedule? After a few years of this, one might be forgiven for thinking that we are just not very good at advocacy. But given a second consideration, we might ask why we should have to be good at advocacy at all in this situation. Isn’t more good health and vigor, and an absence of horrible, debilitating age-related disease, an obvious and unalloyed good? Isn’t the whole point of medicine to defeat disease and prolong health? Isn’t it the case that all of these people in favor of aging and age-related death nonetheless go out and visit the doctor when they get ill, while supporting research into treatments for cancer and other age-related diseases? I don’t think that we are the irrational ones in this picture.

After going on fifteen years of writing on this topic, I don’t have much more of an idea than I did when I started as to why greater human longevity isn’t an obvious and highly important goal for everyone. The same questions and theories back then are still here today, and there is still little data to pin down their accuracy: fear of frailty, of overpopulation, of any change, even positive, and so forth. Since it was an immediate and evident revelation for me, rather than a gradual conversion, perhaps I am not the right person to achieve that understanding. I am, however, pleased to see that despite the challenges our community of iconoclasts, heretics, revolutionaries, and rational thinkers on the subject of longevity science is greatly expanded these days. More of these folk than ever are writing and persuading, both inside and outside the scientific community. We have progressed and grown as a community, alongside progress in the state of the science.

Continue reading “Are We Terrible at Advocacy, or is it Actually Hard to Persuade People of the Merits of Living Longer in Good Health?” »