Figuring Out How Not to Die

NewPhilosopher - by Patrick Stokes on March 20, 2015

Everyone, according to Simone de Beauvoir, views their own death as an accident, as something alien, contingent, unnecessary. As Tolstoy has the dying Ivan Ilyich ponder, it’s perfectly fitting that everyone dies, but quite outrageous that I die.

It probably says something telling about human beings that the oldest surviving piece of literature is about our longing to overcome death.

The Sumerian poetry cycle known to us as the Epic of Gilgamesh tells of the hero’s grief at the death of his friend Enkidu, and his journey to the ends of the earth to seek the secret of immortality from Utnapishtim, the survivor of a global flood (a sort of Mesopotamian proto-Noah). Along the way he meets a wise woman named Siduri, who tries to make him see the futility of his mission:

“Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find the life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping.”

Needless to say, this idea didn’t stop Gilgamesh from trying, and it hasn’t stopped us either. The good news is, we’ve become pretty good at cheating death of late. In the last few decades, life expectancy at birth in Western nations has been growing by several weeks each year. If that growth rate exceeds 52 weeks per year, we’d reach a state that’s only half-jokingly been called “Actuarial Escape Velocity”: the point at which our lives start growing faster than we can live them.

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Google Equals Life Extension

Significance by Carlos Alberto Gómez Grajales

One of the things I thought was amazing is that if you solve cancer, you’d add about three years to people’s average life expectancy. We think of solving cancer as this huge thing that’ll totally change the world, but when you really take a step back and look at it, yeah, there are many, many tragic cases of cancer, and it’s very, very sad, but in the aggregate, it’s not as big an advance as you might think.

Can statistics save your life? Well, Google certainly thinks it can. Moreover, the company has invested a huge amount of money to prove it. In a surprising move, that just appeared on cover of Time Magazine, Google announced its investment in Calico, a company headed by Genentech and Apple board member Arthur Levinson.

A company investing in another company is not really that interesting (unless you are heavily involved in Wall Street) yet the interesting part is that one of those companies is an internet giant and the others initials stand for California Life Company. Indeed, Google has just entered in the medical research market.


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Mostly dead is still partly alive - The future of emergency medicine

Why should a shutdown of oxygen to the brain for more than 4 minutes result in irreversible death? Imagine if when you turned off your car for more than a few minutes, it became irreversibly damaged. Kind of a design flaw, wouldn't you say? What about if removing the battery from your smartphone for 4 minutes ended up killing its CPU? Ridiculous. So why do our brains go bye-bye under analogous circumstances?

As you'll see in this video, it turns out that it's not necessarily the lack of oxygen that destroys our brain cells. It's the reintroduction of oxygen that kills them. Lance Becker shows how "controlled reperfusion" can extend the boundary between life and death and allow patients to be successfully reanimated after longer and longer periods of oxygen deprivation.

Lance Becker: Modifying the Boundary between Life and Death from Singularity Institute on Vimeo.

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Why you're getting old.

Why are you getting old? Is getting old just something we have to accept and put up with?

Check out this Introduction to the Biology Aging and Senescence

Senescence is the biological process of age-related deterioration in function.

The study of human senescence has been fraught with controversy, conflicting theories, and puzzling data. Gerontologists do not even agree on whether "pure" senescence is distinct from diseases of old age. Medical science has cataloged many signs of senescence. It manifests as dozens of changes in cells, tissues, and organs during aging. Human life is supported by a complex network of biochemical substances and reactions which affect the physical state and vitality of the body and mind. Senescent changes can be seen in the rate and outcome of many of these reactions. However, many of these changes are secondary effects of senescence, rather than primary causes. A summary of some of the secondary effects in human aging can be found in the Dossier on Ageing prepared by the Health on the Net Foundation.

Disposable Soma Theory for the Evolution of Senescence

It is noteworthy that the germ line of egg and sperm has been maintained alive and safe from senescence and oxidative decay for over a billion years. Our life is part of an unbroken chain of life, extending back in time to our earliest ancestors.

Most of the biochemical reactions of life were developed long ago in single-celled organisms and bacteria, long before multicellular organisms arose. These single-celled organisms reproduced by dividing into two equal halves. Neither half was parent or child. Some of their descendants are still thriving today, living and dividing, and apparently not senile. Consequently, it is attractive to think of these protista and monera as never aging. However, there is evidence that the processes of growing and dividing are important factors in maintaining the youthful state of these cells.

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How to live longer - Get off your a$$

LiveScience - 7.23.10 by LiveScience Staff

Hitting the gym every day might do little to decrease your risk of death if you spend the rest of your time sitting down, a new study suggests.

The results show the time people spend on their derrieres is associated with an increased risk of mortality, regardless of their physical activity level.

The findings suggest public health messages should promote both physical activity and less time on the couch, the researchers say.

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Pope speaks out against radical life-extension

Accelerating Future - 6.29.10 (by Michael Anissimov)

From the Pope’s April 3rd (“Holy Saturday”) address, via Aubrey:

An ancient Jewish legend from the apocryphal book “The life of Adam and Eve” recounts that, in his final illness, Adam sent his son Seth together with Eve into the region of Paradise to fetch the oil of mercy, so that he could be anointed with it and healed. The two of them went in search of the tree of life, and after much praying and weeping on their part, the Archangel Michael appeared to them, and told them they would not obtain the oil of the tree of mercy and that Adam would have to die...

It’s been more than 5,500 years, and God never showed up, so now what? In fact, it’s been 200,000 years since the beginning of Mankind. God, maybe you’re a little bit late, don’t you think? Also, note how the Pope casually mentions Christian readers “(adding) a word of consolation” about an Archangel to the text, and refers to Apocrypha as theologically meaningful. Does making stuff up count as theologically significant if it was done far enough in the past?

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Living forever by uploading your consciousness - a valid approach?

IEET - 3.30.10 (by Ben Hyink)

While it may be impolitic now for technoprogressives to focus on uploading, for radical life extension advocates it is invaluable to have access to brief and compelling arguments in favor of the efficacy of such a process.

It is a process that will be necessary to enable people to live longer than an average of 150 years when they are increasingly likely to die from random accidents encountered in a normal lifestyle. In the past I have made arguments against the feasibility of some forms of uploading as a means of life extension. I would like to correct that error by providing a line of argument in favor of uploading as a life extension measure, though the life that is extended may change dramatically with a dilution of the self into a larger group of minds.
Is Consciousness and the Self Bound to Biology?

Multiple types of scientific evidence point by consistent correlation to matter, and particularly matter in neurophysiological states, as the basis or substrate of cognitive processes and conscious experience. While in philosophy of mind we cannot completely rule out the possibility that such correlation is illusory or that the substrate of thought and experience is something other than the observable brain, there seems to be no compelling evidence-based reason to doubt that our observations of brain activity are observations of the locus of thought and experience.

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How to live beyond 100 (Dan Buettner at TED)

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Humans - We're living longer and staying healthier

PhysOrg.com - 3.24.10

People in developed nations are living in good health as much as a decade longer than their parents did, not because aging has been slowed or reversed, but because they are staying healthy to a more advanced age.

"We're living longer because people are reaching old age in better health," said demographer James Vaupel, author of a review article appearing in the March 25 edition of Nature. But once it starts, the process of aging itself -- including dementia and heart disease -- is still happening at pretty much the same rate. "Deterioration, instead of being stretched out, is being postponed."

The better health in older age stems from public health efforts to improve living conditions and prevent disease, and from improved medical interventions, said Vaupel, who heads Duke University's Center on the Demography of Aging and holds academic appointments at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, and the institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Demark.

Over the past 170 years, in the countries with the highest life expectancies, the average life span has grown at a rate of 2.5 years per decade, or about 6 hours per day.

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Is Aging Really Necessary? (Panel Discussion)

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Radical life extension to become big business?

Reason.com - 11.17.2009 (by Ronald Bailey)

Witnessing the launch of Immortality, Inc.?

If you’re under age 30, it is likely that you will be able to live as long as you want. That is, barring accidents and wars, you have centuries of healthy life ahead of you. So the participants in the Longevity Summit convened in Manhattan Beach, California, contend. Over the weekend Maximum Life Foundation president David Kekich gathered a group of scientists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to meet for three days with the goal of developing a scientific and business strategy to make extreme human life extension a real possibility within a couple of decades. Kekich dubbed the effort the Manhattan Beach Project.

Tech entrepreneur and futurist Ray Kurzweil opened the conference with a virtual presentation on exponential technology trends that are bringing the prospect of achieving longevity escape velocity ever closer. “We are very close to the tipping point in human longevity,” asserted Kurzweil to the conferees. “We are about 15 years away from adding more than one year of longevity per year to remaining life expectancy.” This has been labeled by summiteer and life-extension guru Aubrey de Grey as longevity escape velocity. Achieving escape velocity, according to Kekich, would mean that “your projected day of reckoning moves further away from you rather than closing in on you.”

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Radical life-extension is real

Breitbart -10/1/09

The fountain of youth may exist after all, as a study showed that scientists have discovered means to extend the lifespan of mice and primates.

The key to eternal -- or at least prolonged -- youth lies in genetic manipulation that mimics the health benefits of reducing calorie intake, suggesting that aging and age-related diseases can be treated.

Scientists from the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London (UCL) extended the lifespan of mice by up to a fifth and reduced the number of age-related diseases affecting the animals after they genetically manipulated them to block production of the S6 Kinase 1 (S6K1) protein.

Scientists have shown since the 1930s that reducing the calorie intake by 30 percent for rats, mice and -- in a more recent finding -- primates can extend their lifespan by 40 percent and have health benefits.

By blocking S6K1, which is involved in the body's response to changes in food intake, similar benefits were obtained without reducing food intake, according to the study published in the US journal Science.

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Wanna be immortal?

SDNN - 09/08/09 - Arthur Salm

“There is hope, but not for us.” - Kafka

There’s bad timing, and then there’s this: Instead of a day late and a dollar short, most of us are a day early and … well, money doesn’t even play into it, because we’re gonna die.

Nothing revelatory there, of course. People have been dealing with awareness of their own mortality ever since the first stone-age hunter and/or gatherer — or maybe even his pre-homo sapiens ancestor — figured out what was in store, and began working frantically at constructing a set of beliefs that would allow him not only to continue on after death, but to do so with perks denied him in this mortal, saber-tooth-tiger- and annoying-brother-in-law-infested coil.

But a lot of us alive today are likely to really have our noses rubbed in that vexing mortality thing, because it’s looking more and more as if nanotech-boosted medicinal biology is going to make “life extension” an everyday term. Nanobots will be able to repair the slightest defect arising from defective genes, a detrimental environment, and even, yes, aging. In short, people are going to live forever.

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Finally, true life-extension drugs to be tested

NYT - August 17, 2009, by Nicholas Wade

It may be the ultimate free lunch — how to reap all the advantages of a calorically restricted diet, including freedom from disease and an extended healthy life span, without eating one fewer calorie. Just take a drug that tricks the body into thinking it’s on such a diet.

It sounds too good to be true, and maybe it is. Yet such drugs are now in clinical trials. Even if they should fail, as most candidate drugs do, their development represents a new optimism among research biologists that aging is not immutable, that the body has resources that can be mobilized into resisting disease and averting the adversities of old age.

This optimism, however, is not fully shared. Evolutionary biologists, the experts on the theory of aging, have strong reasons to suppose that human life span cannot be altered in any quick and easy way. But they have been confounded by experiments with small laboratory animals, like roundworms, fruit flies and mice. In all these species, the change of single genes has brought noticeable increases in life span.

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Wi-Fi Pacemakers - so your doc can monitor you 24/7

Editor's Note: The pacemaker, albeit a very important little implant, is only one of manyu on an ever-increasing list. Now it can communicate its and its hosts statuses to the Interweb. What does this capability portend? Convenience and health, surely. Control of humanity by an artillect? We will see.

NYT - August 10, 2009, by Reuters

After relying on a pacemaker for 20 years, Carol Kasyjanski has become the first American recipient of a wireless pacemaker that allows her doctor to monitor her health from afar -- over the Internet.

When Kasyjanski heads to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York, for a routine check-up, about 90 percent of the work has already been done because her doctor logged into his computer and learned most of what he needed to know about his patient.

Three weeks ago Kasyjanski, 61, became the first person in the United States to be implanted with a pacemaker with a wireless home monitoring system that transmits critical information to her doctor via the Internet.

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Instant repairs of injuries on the battlefield

Editor's Note: Yesterday's post was about advances being brought about by the needs of scientists. Today its the needs of the military.

Wired - August 3, 2009, by Katie Drummond

The military wants soldiers who can withstand anything - even the worst and most debilitating wartime injuries. Now Darpa, the Pentagon’s far-out research team, is trying to make traumatic injuries more like minor scrapes, patched up to be good as new. Or better.

Darpa’s been working on superhuman soldiers for years. They’ve toyed with cellular mitochondria and pondered putting soldiers on the Atkins diet. In 2006, Darpa launched an ambitious Restorative Injury Repair program, that aims to “fully repair” body parts damaged by traumatic injury.

Earlier this year, researchers funded by that program generated new human muscle that could replace damaged tissue. Now Darpa’s asking for a device that can use adult stem cells for a regenerative free-for-all, pumping out whatever needed to repair injured body parts, including nerves, bone and skin. Already, research has proven that adult stem cells can act the same way embryonic ones do - differentiating into the highly-specified cells that form complex body parts.

According to Darpa’s solicitation, 85 percent of recent wartime injuries involved damage to the extremities and facial regions. That often means multiple surgeries, rehab and permanent disability for vets. They’re hoping to eliminate the injuries, and their long-term consequences, with a system that can reproduce in vitro tissues with the same structural and mechanical properties of the real stuff. And maybe make better versions: Darpa wants implanted results that will “replace, restore or improve tissue/organ function.”

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Sliding past the blood-brain barrier

Editor's Note: As the term implies, the blood-brain barrier is a means by which evolution has successfully protected the brain from certain types of pathogens that may be circulating in the bloodstream. Getting therapeutic objects past this barrier has been an ongoing subject of medical research for some time. This article outlines the successful passage of nanoparticles through this barrier. The therapeutic potential of this feat is hard to fathom.

PhysOrg.com - August 3, 2009

Brain cancer is among the deadliest of cancers. It's also one of the hardest to treat. Imaging results are often imprecise because brain cancers are extremely invasive. Surgeons must saw through the skull and safely remove as much of the tumor as they can. Then doctors use radiation or chemotherapy to destroy cancerous cells in the surrounding tissue.

Researchers at the University of Washington have been able to illuminate brain tumors by injecting fluorescent nanoparticles into the bloodstream that safely cross the blood-brain barrier - an almost impenetrable barrier that protects the brain from infection. The nanoparticles remained in mouse tumors for up to five days and did not show any evidence of damaging the blood-brain barrier, according to results published this week in the journal Cancer Research.

Results showed the nanoparticles improved the contrast in both MRI and optical imaging, which is used during surgery.

"Brain cancers are very invasive, different from the other cancers. They will invade the surrounding tissue and there is no clear boundary between the tumor tissue and the normal brain tissue," said lead author Miqin Zhang, a UW professor of materials science and engineering.

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This robot may make your skin crawl

Editor's Note: The hope of researchers is that this robot can not only fit anywhere in the human body but can crawl there under its own power and, once there,perform whatever functions are needed.

American Technion Society - July 7, 2009, by Kevin Hattori

Technion researchers have created a micro robot that can crawl through the human body.

Moving reality a step closer to "Fantastic Voyage," researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed a micro robot that can crawl through the human body.

The robot is propelled by micro legs, a mechanism especially adapted to the movements of a tiny body through water. It is only a millimeter in diameter and 14 millimeters long, fitting on the tip of a finger, so it can get into the body’s smallest areas. It is powered by either actuation through magnetic force located outside the body, or through an on-board actuation system. Made of silicone and metal, it can be made completely biocompatible, so it could remain in the body much as a stent placed in arteries does.

“In the future, we hope the robot will be able to travel through a blood vessel, the digestive tract or the lungs, delivering targeted medicines to specific locations, clearing blockages, performing biopsies, or placed inside a shunt to drain body fluids from clogged areas,” Shoham explains.

The development has been presented at scientific conferences where it has aroused great interest. Professor Menashe Zaaroor and research engineer Oded Salomon also participated in the research.

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The science of happiness

Editor's Note: People generally know what happiness feels like, although it's devilishly difficult to describe. And we generally want to feel happy most, if not all, the time. Hence the proliferation of things that purport to be happy-making, some benign, some beneficial, some destructive and addictive. We have no instruction booklet to show us how to attain happiness-maximum, although various groups and organizations claim to have one. Here's an interesting article on the beneficial aspects of "seeding" our lives with positive emotions."

ScienceDaily - July 12, 2009

Positive Emotions Increase Life Satisfaction By Building Resilience

People who seed their life with frequent moments of positive emotions increase their resilience against challenges, according to a new study by a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill psychologist and colleagues.

“This study shows that if happiness is something you want out of life, then focusing daily on the small moments and cultivating positive emotions is the way to go,” said Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences and the principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory. “Those small moments let positive emotions blossom, and that helps us become more open. That openness then helps us build resources that can help us rebound better from adversity and stress, ward off depression and continue to grow.”

“The levels of positive emotions that produced good benefits weren’t extreme. Participants with average and stable levels of positive emotions still showed growth in resilience even when their days included negative emotions.”

In the month long study, 86 participants were asked to submit daily “emotion reports,” rather than answering general questions like, “Over the last few months, how much joy did you feel?”

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• Positive Emotional Psychology: Have a 'Daily Diet' of Positive Emotions (health.usnews.com)

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Of Mice and Men - Life Extension

Editor's Note: We're always reading about wonder drugs that work on mice. I'm waiting for the article that says: Works on humans too! Pick it up at your local Walgreen's!

Technology Review - July 8, 2009, by Jocelyn Rice

First Drug Shown to Extend Life Span in Mammals - Rapamycin, an immunosuppressant, enables elderly mice to live longer.

A drug derived from bacteria in the soil on Easter Island can substantially extend the life span of mice, according to a study published online today in Nature. The drug, called rapamycin, is the first pharmacological agent shown to enhance longevity in a mammal, and it works when administered beginning late in life. Prior to this research, the only ways to increase rodents' life span were via genetic engineering or caloric restriction--a nutritionally complete but very low-calorie diet.

Rapamycin is an antifungal compound already approved by the FDA as an immunosuppressive therapy to help prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. It is currently being tested in clinical trials for potential anticancer effects.

The drug had previously been shown to extend life span in invertebrates. "[This study is] exciting because it shows that it's feasible to do this in a mammal," says David Sinclair, codirector of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study. "Maybe 20 years from now we'll look back at this study as a landmark that pointed the way to medicines of the future."

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• Easter Island compound vastly boosts lifespan in mice (nationalpost.com)

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