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Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

japantimes.co.jp

331–340 of 382 posts

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s plenty of room for life extension Evolution doesn’t optimise for length of life, just propagation. A number of species have evolved to have very short life cycles because that enabled greater propagation. Presumably shorter lives generally confer greater adaptability as it increases the opportunity for evolutionary change

Evolution does optimize longevity in at least one way. Chromosomes have a limited number of telomeres, each time the cell divides the telomeres become shorter. If your cell runs out of telomeres it can't divide anymore. This is one of the primary mechanisms the body balances repair against cancer risk. Current max of human life is about 120. If you don't "solve" the telomere problem you are not going to extend life p…

Couldn't there be 1:1 replacement of pretty much everything in the human body? Organs, bad/old cells for good/new ones...etc?

Nanobots at some point may be able to essentially destroy bad/old cells, and maybe feed/nourish good cells we want to keep, and when cells can't divide anymore, could those be replaced with ones that could ?

I think back to the movie Bicentennial man, where he made completely real working human / robot interchangeable parts that basically allow for increased life and better health. Sure it's a movie, but we can 3d print organs and things, so it's not outside the realm of possibility...

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#332
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's queues everywhere

If this technology is real it needs to be expensive enough to prevent the vast majority of people on earth from having access to it.

Nah, instead of that it requires winning a dose via lottery, and only 10k people are allowed per year. Ran via blockchain w/ complete transparency and no way to cheat or buy a dose if you're super wealthy.

Your way is depressing and dystopian AF.

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#333

1. Removing senescent cells extends life by 30-40% with huge quality of life improvements in the last 25% of the life (relative to control), in mice. This isn't an elimination of all aging, but quite a valuable thing regardless. Eventually, other causes of aging would kick in and still cause death, without a single senescent cell in your body (e.g. DNA methylation). 2. I believe all governments should create Warpspee…

> Even if it's only 10 more years of quality life, this is the greatest good that could be done for humanity Why would that be your conclusion? It's 10 more years of life. It's not 10 more years of better life. It's a little more of the same. That 10 years is "experienced" as only a short increase in local time. Whereas before 33% of your life would have been 28 years old, afterwards 33% of your life would be at 31 y…

A hard stop at age 72 would probably do humanity a lot more good, actually.

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine the massive GDP creation from making every 65+ year old feel 40 again. Come on. It's like more than half a century ago some economists predict because of the improvement of technology and the overall production, most people only need to work 4 hours per day. aaand now we have a lot of people working 12 hours a day over the wire already. GDP is the millstone that when it's bigger it grinds more soul - becaus…

Agreed. Imagine the unemployment if all the retirees want to come back to work to pay for their extended-life vaccines. And what for? If I retire, I want to enjoy it… the last thing I want is to go back to work

I'm retired... but I still create.

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people need to die now more than ever ?

We are currently at the brink of extinction, ironically by overpopulation. Everyone knew rapid growth is unsustainable, with 7.9 billion people on earth right now, we are causing more: Carbon emissions, global warming, pollution, environmental damage, ozone depletion etc. Soon we won't have a planet to live in. I am sure mother nature will find more subtle but beautiful way to eradicate us. But, hopefully we leave th…

> I am sure mother nature will find more subtle but beautiful way to eradicate us.

Missing /s?

Nature's remedies are more normally quite blunt and brutal.

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#336
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood how jobs work. They do exist in a limited supply. When a factory closes down and outsources all the jobs in a town, your job goes away. When a robot starts doing your job, you are not needed anymore for that job. People in ivory towers expect that you should easily retrain and find new jobs that does not happen for the average joe. When an immigrant is willing to do your job for less money o…

> They do exist in a limited supply. When a factory closes down and outsources all the jobs in a town, your job goes away. I should have said "fixed number". The US population is now twice as big as 1955. If the number of jobs had stayed fixed since then, unemployment would now be at least 50%. This is clearly not true, which disproves the "fixed number of jobs" theory.

> This is clearly not true, which disproves the "fixed number of jobs" theory.

Not sure why you are disproving your own theory.

Perhaps you just missed the point I am trying to make.

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution does optimize longevity in at least one way. Chromosomes have a limited number of telomeres, each time the cell divides the telomeres become shorter. If your cell runs out of telomeres it can't divide anymore. This is one of the primary mechanisms the body balances repair against cancer risk. Current max of human life is about 120. If you don't "solve" the telomere problem you are not going to extend life p…

Couldn't there be 1:1 replacement of pretty much everything in the human body? Organs, bad/old cells for good/new ones...etc? Nanobots at some point may be able to essentially destroy bad/old cells, and maybe feed/nourish good cells we want to keep, and when cells can't divide anymore, could those be replaced with ones that could ? I think back to the movie Bicentennial man, where he made completely real working huma…

Think of telomeres like a counter at the DNA level. Each time the cell reproduces, it loses a counter. Eventually it runs out of counters and dies. To extend life you have to add telomeres. And you have to do it in an extremely careful way that still manages to control cancer.

In a sci-fi hypothetical where nanobytes can do arbitrary behaviors, sure, maybe they could intelligently do that. But that's an extremely complex thing.

My point to my original post is really that if anyone hears a "longer life" breakthru that doesn't even mention telomeres, I immediately move on. If they moved the needle on well-being of the elderly a bit, that's great. But nobody's "solving aging" without telomeres.

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop being a Luddite. That’s how technology works. First it’s available to only the super rich because it is expensive, then over time with advances and improvement or production it becomes more widely available. It’s cell therapy, it will inevitable end up becoming cheap.

"will inevitable end up becoming cheap." Or we will end up an immortal ruling class cartel...

It’s going to be really hard keeping immortality under wraps now. The world is globalized and even under the most pessimistic of timelines it will eventually be open knowledge.

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if it's only 10 more years of quality life, this is the greatest good that could be done for humanity Why would that be your conclusion? It's 10 more years of life. It's not 10 more years of better life. It's a little more of the same. That 10 years is "experienced" as only a short increase in local time. Whereas before 33% of your life would have been 28 years old, afterwards 33% of your life would be at 31 y…

A hard stop at age 72 would probably do humanity a lot more good, actually.

We'd be able to enjoy so much more of our retirement money without having to insure against living to 100.

Re: Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging

#340

1. Removing senescent cells extends life by 30-40% with huge quality of life improvements in the last 25% of the life (relative to control), in mice. This isn't an elimination of all aging, but quite a valuable thing regardless. Eventually, other causes of aging would kick in and still cause death, without a single senescent cell in your body (e.g. DNA methylation). 2. I believe all governments should create Warpspee…

The idea that anti-aging medicine is good because we could force a bunch of old people out of retirement is horrifying.

The old people could have retired much earlier if they had shorter lifespans, so we should work on pro-aging drugs.
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