Blood cells from 80-year-old donor become stem cells with molecular age under 20

3 hours ago (doi.org)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13634082/

It may be a dumb reason to do it, but recently I've started to focus on my health a bit more because of news like this (more exercise and healthier food).

The thinking is, if we find a way to massively extend the human lifespan/reverse aging I want to live long enough for that.

I'd be pissed if we as humanity solved aging and I die just before that, not taking any chances.

  • Seems like you are interested in living longer. One cool trick to doing that has always been to focus on your health. Are you saying that before recent developments the extension of life benefit wasn't worth it for you? By the way, when you die it's impossible to be "pissed".

    • Maybe they mean the compromises they're making didn't weigh out enough to be motivating over the thought of just a few more years, but if those few years might make the difference to catching an opportunity for double or more the years it's suddenly motivating enough.

  • lol, I am kind of in the same mode of thought but just kind of expect it not to happen.

    There was a really shitty movie starring Jared Leto I think about the same problem. Being the last guy to miss out on being immortal

Sounds like the immortal jellyfish solution. We squeeze entropy out of our DNA by creating a new fresh cell (ovum) that’s very sensitive to genetic defects, meaning if it survives it’s probably good. The jellyfish just shrinks back to a single cell (presumably with some mechanism for keeping the ‘best’ cell) to reset the damage. This is doing the same thing, but piece by piece.

Edit: And wow, that abstract appears to have eaten an entire thesaurus.

Because this is the worst timeline, we're getting cell reprogramming used to grow artificial brains to run AI workloads before functional aging remediation... let alone GTA VI.

If something like this ever becomes a practical application on the organismal level, the octogenarian dictators of the world will rejoice.

  • An individual pancreas cell discovering the secret to immortality is a triumph for that cell, and a real bad thing for the body. This is like that, but for the entire human population.

    • Even if medical science one day eliminates aging and disease, nobody is going to live forever—eventually you’ll succumb to an accident, or war, or homicide.

  • To expand, we might find out the hard way that having an expiration date was a feature of our species, not a flaw.

    • Walk me through it: in order to get dictators killed, because they defend themselves very effectively, we should put everybody on the planet under a biological death sentence, which will get the dictators too.

      No, I cannot endorse this.

      2 replies →

    • It's a feature of every species that evolves. You can't evolve if you're striving to outcompete your offspring. You quickly game out that not having offspring is the winning chess move there. Now you're not having offspring, and thus you're not evolving. Then the environment changes and you, being unable to adapt in any way, go extinct.

    • All it would take would be one billionaire who invested in long term bonds, à la Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy…

  • Eh, we might see some benefit to leaders having a reason to care about stuff 10+ years from now.

    • I feel like AI has opened a door of plausibility to Black Mirror or Twilight Zone concepts more than any other novel technology in my lifetime.

      What if living 300 years meant the entire tempo of human living changes. That we all just slow right down because having control over our aging and when it happens. To be able to decide to extend your 20s… or not. To spend decades in your 30s. How would that change what’s important to us?

  • I’d be far more worried about this causing turbo cancer than immortality in dictators.

  • and the bourgeoisie, a temporary regulation would be needed in those areas of the world to separate the upper class from the capability of the rulers

    in western nations where that’s not possible, I could see national bans, but one weak link globally and everyone wealthy will get their treatment there

    • An undying trillionaire class definitely sounds like a possible future. Not an ideal one, mind you, but definitely in the realm of possibilities.

      I'm calling it now, Qatar will be the place that allows these treatments once they're a real thing.

      I have to imagine the Uber wealthy are pouring money into youthful longevity science.

      1 reply →

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sigh.