41–45 of 45 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a headline is phrased as a question, the answer is always "no." If the answer were "yes", they wouldn't have phrased it as a question.
Hacker News law of Betteridge's law of headlines: If the headline is applicable Betteridge's Law will always be mentioned.
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Easy: if you want to be immortal you have to be sterilized too. And you can't adopt nor rent a womb. There, no overpopulation problem.
Doesn't solve the problem. Suppose I have three kids, then get immortalized and sterilized. Each of my kids does the same...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a headline is phrased as a question, the answer is always "no." If the answer were "yes", they wouldn't have phrased it as a question.
Hacker News law of Betteridge's law of headlines: If the headline is applicable Betteridge's Law will always be mentioned.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From Wikipedia article: "The cells were later commercialized, although never patented in their original form." Patenting a human cell? That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard.
Nobody patented "a human cell". What can get patented is the method for creating this cell line. Here's the classic (and controversial, but for different reasons) patent related to the Mo cell line (T-lymphoblasts): http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4438032.html These cell lines do not exist in nature and what is patented was the creation of a new immortalized cell line.
But I have a sinking feeling that it could.
"Increasing human longevity has no meaning, it is ecological nonsense." This is an interesting quote from the article given by another biologist Stefano Piraino, not the main focus of the article. If we did find the secret to immortality, it would be stupid to give it to everyone. In that case, who gets it?
You are somehow imagining that this will be administered in a strictly controlled manner. It won't. In fact, I will be very sad if it's not part of the regular capitalist marketplace. Will it lead to overpopulation? Yes. Bloody wars? Yes. Almost completely stagnant population? Suicides left and right by 200-y.o. people? Perverse class imbalance? Complete overhaul of society as we know it? Yesyesyesnotreally. Because…
As far as the "immortality" for these jellyfish go though, they are rather easy to kill. They can't even eat a whole prawn egg, and their water temperature has to be just right.