( You don't have a science thread so I figured 'technology' fits the bill closest ) Australian and US scientists reverse ageing in mice, humans could be next - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) According to this article, a test was conducted on mice in which they managed to reverse the aging process on them. If this is the case, and there are not any long term side-effects this project will move into the human testing phase. This very well could mark the end of us humans getting old and brittle. I'm just curious what people think about this? I don't claim to be a scientist so I won't try to assert that I know anything in the science world as absolute truth, but this looks pretty legit, and I'd certainly love to get a chance to live a hyper extended life. Anyone else feel like living forever?
If I could maintain a certain level of health and ever present youthful appearance sure. My understanding of the issue is more that each time your DNA replicates, a small portion of your DNA is cut off due to the method in which chemical self assembly occurs. Something about telomeres...
I wouldn't know. I read the article and tried to understand as best as I could, but I really don't have the science background for the particular details.
Only I can live...forever..... In all seriousness though, there is no way this ends well for a unimaginable amount of reasons. Our population is already skyrocketing as it is. It reminds me of that one movie where hours of life were used as forms of currency. Sure, I'll take some extra time, but the reality of it all would have serious ramifications.
I already have the solution for the population problem. What we so is actually fund NASA for a change so they can get more people working on planetary travel. Then we just planet hop our 'practically immortal' selves around the universe and inhabit new worlds, but we have to get over our human habit of killing everything that occupied the space first because in the universe there is plenty of room for co-habitation.
Of course, people will still be able to die from disease and injury. We may have to take drastic measures to keep from overpopulation, though.
That was about the timeline I was figuring. ---------- Post added 22nd Dec 2013 at 01:42 AM ---------- It's a good first step in biological immortality.
Meaning vacate the earth as a species to live elsewhere, or just begin little jaunts here and there? The latter is realistic; the former is not going to happen for perhaps hundreds of years at the very least. On topic though, I really hope the experiment is workable for people. Extremely long productive lives will wreck the economy and possibly lead to population explosion like we've never seen, and then vast swaths of famine, disease, and other mayhem, but properly managed, that kind of longevity means that people can gain more knowledge, wisdom, and experience, and put it all to much more use.
As long as we had ways of dealing with their corrupt and evil counterparts, I'd say we would consider lightsabers to be as commonplace as pocket knives if they were able to keep pushing science.
And Tardis's. Or Tardi. Or whatever you want to call time machines that are bigger on the inside. ---------- Post added 22nd Dec 2013 at 04:25 AM ---------- In Time?
I'm not super familiar with the inner workers of Dr.Who. The premise of the show interests me, but the first time I tried to watch it the show had 'Dinosaurs in space' which...well it was a little much for a first introduction to a show I was already skeptical of to begin with.
The thing with Doctor Who is that it relies a lot on suspension of disbelief... Some episodes are too much though, such as the one with Shakespeare and the witches. /// Right now I think I'd love to live to be 180 years or something. Years fly by and I'm almost through a fifth of my life without accomplishing anything significant. Maybe once I'm 80 and I've actually lived a little I'll feel a little different.
My brain doesn't like suspending disbelief for anything besides animes. xD I feel you. I'm in the same boat, only with more debt I'm guessing lol
Well at least if it doesn't work on humans ... We'll have more younger healthier mice .... I wonder what price a person would have to pay to live younger longer ??
Problem with something like that is that it is very expensive. And while I believe in full health care (not insurance) it isn't feasible yet to make that available to anyone who wants it.