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Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

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Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#41

Post by M_Grey »

radiorental wrote: post #36
M_Grey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaires are not immune to the terrifying realities of life and death, they're just more likely to delude themselves into thinking that like so many rules, they can beat that too. The result is, on the bright side, that sometimes they do some real good by funding research. The downside is that often they blow that money on extremely expensive snake oil.

> real good by funding research Like the planet need humans to live longer???

The planet has no needs at all, and human longevity is unlikely to be a major issue when most of our human ventures center around efficient ways of killing each other.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#42

Post by ekianjo »

Brakenshire wrote: post #27
pen2l wrote: post #23

There was this interesting article which talks about some scientists suggesting an upper age limit: http://www.nature.com/news/human-age-limit-claim-sparks-deba... There are lots of disagreements and debate about the science of extending the life span, so there is probably not going to be much fruitful results in the near future. For the short term, you could extend your life by: 1) having a low calorie diet, 2) avoi…

As far as I understand, this is just looking at demographic data, so probably if you do everything like exercise and diet right, and you have good genes, 115 is about the limit. It's basically saying that lifespan isn't going to continually drift upwards about that level with marginal improvements in living standards. I don't see that we can get anything from that data which gives you clear answers about the potentia…

> if you do everything like exercise and diet right, and you have good genes

and if you are female. Don't forget that females have a much higher survival rate over time than men.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#43

Post by shrewduser »

ucaetano wrote: post #4
notyourwork wrote: post #2

Jeff Bezos surely has a diverse set of investments. A clock in a mountain, space travel, anti-aging. Is he trying to create a bionic space conquering society? His mountain clock being +0 and everything else in the galaxy dependent upon it as basis for time.

No, he's just afraid of dying.

age related illness is no joke. it's not as much about living forever as it is about having a higher quality of life into later ages.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#44

Post by xkcd-sucks »

Practicality wrote: post #9
dbg31415 wrote: post #7

Oh yay, now we can look forward to immortal rich folks. And the abolition of the retirement age.

I am pretty sure the way it works is that everyone will get the immortality when it is available, but the poor folks get 1,000 years of debt.

Only if people respect IP law.

Normal small-molecule drugs are trivial to reverse-engineer, biologics are trickier but the means of manufacturing them is self-replicating, and Shenzhen is good at reverse-engineering other technologies if we're to believe what we read in the media

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#45

Post by reasonattlm »

Some things to look at when thinking about the plausibility of senescent cell clearance as a rejuvenation therapy.

1) 25% median life extension in mice: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature16932

2) Reverses aspects of lung tissue aging in mice, including loss of elasticity: http://insight.jci.org/articles/view/87732?key=a306472a4316d...

3) The missing link in diabetic retinopathy: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf9440

4) A factor in atherosclerosis development: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf6659

Which really just scratches the surface of the enormously amount of research accumulated since the 1960s on the role of senescent cells in aging and age-related diseases. The lung tissue paper above is a particularly good read if you want to get a sense for the nuts and bolts of the issue. Senescent cells secrete signals that disrupt tissue structure and cellular behavior, and even at 1% of the population, that is enough to produce pathology. But on the other hand, 1% is small enough to clear without major disruption, so targeted destruction is a very plausible technology, and removing some fraction of these cells as a one-time treatment should be all upside. Repeat as needed.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#46

Post by misiti3780 »

I just finished a book by Nick Lane where he discussed how he believes aging is cause by mitochondrial free-radical leakage. His hypothesis (and he is a smart guy) is that science will allow people to live longer, but probably not much longer than 125.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20021368

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#47

Post by onion2k »

darawk wrote: post #22
dbg31415 wrote: post #7

Oh yay, now we can look forward to immortal rich folks. And the abolition of the retirement age.

I know you're making a joke, but a lot of people say this and it always irks me slightly. This narrative that if rich people fund X universally desirable thing, then only rich people will have X. This is literally never the case in the history of technology. Yes, the rich get it first, but it filters down to poor people really really quickly, especially in the modern age where costs fall at an insane pace. Sorry, did…

In technology, sure. In somewhat less easy to define things, not so much. Rich people tend to have better education, better health care, less worries and stress (or at least less existential worries and better coping mechanisms), and better "life opportunities" as far as anything that requires money is concerned. Poor people can't work in industries where unpaid internships are commonplace for example, because they need to earn money for rent and food. Rich people can work for free if they choose to.

Whether a vastly extended lifespan falls under just technology, and thus ends up as something everyone can have, or something else that is actually limited to the rich is something we don't yet know.

For example, if the key to a longer life is technology plus retiring as early as possible to limit stress, poor people aren't going to live longer.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#48

Post by tonmoy »

M_Grey wrote: post #41
radiorental wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> real good by funding research Like the planet need humans to live longer???

The planet has no needs at all, and human longevity is unlikely to be a major issue when most of our human ventures center around efficient ways of killing each other.

A ,ore appropriate question would be, "Does humanity need longevity for humans?"

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#49

Post by rezashirazian »

M_Grey wrote: post #16
ucaetano wrote: post #3

Funny how as billionaires get older, they start backing anti-aging and life-extension initiatives.

Billionaires are not immune to the terrifying realities of life and death, they're just more likely to delude themselves into thinking that like so many rules, they can beat that too. The result is, on the bright side, that sometimes they do some real good by funding research. The downside is that often they blow that money on extremely expensive snake oil.

And that when you're a billionaire you have much more to lose when you die.

Re: Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing

#50

Post by yazaddaruvala »

Practicality wrote: post #9
dbg31415 wrote: post #7

Oh yay, now we can look forward to immortal rich folks. And the abolition of the retirement age.

I am pretty sure the way it works is that everyone will get the immortality when it is available, but the poor folks get 1,000 years of debt.

In all seriousness, the price for eternal youth will be the cost of production and shipping.

If it turns out to be a compound for eternal youth, then it can be reverse engineered by labs in China or India (or anywhere). There is no sufficient patent, IP law, moral high ground about R&D expenses. The world will be supplied at the cost of production and shipping.

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