Anonymous ID: 3315ea Feb. 23, 2019, 9:56 a.m. No.5346765   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>6771

In 2019, the quest for everlasting life is, largely, though not always, more scientific. Funded by Silicon Valley elites, researchers believe they are closer than ever to tweaking the human body so that we can finally live forever (or quite a bit longer), even as some worry about pseudoscience in the sector.

Scientists and entrepreneurs are working on a range of techniques, from attempting to stop cells aging, to the practice of injecting young blood into old people – a process denounced as quackery by the Federal Drug Administration this week.

That’s where what enthusiasts called “super longevity” comes in. A number of billionaires have pumped money into research that aims to keep people fighting fit as they age. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have pumped millions into Calico, a secretive health venture which aims to “solve death”. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the billionaire Peter Thiel are backers of Unity Biotechnology, which hopes to combat the effects of aging.

The idea of never dying might sound like something from science fiction, but the experimental techniques are far removed from a brain in a jar, a body in a freezer, or a heart wired up to a car battery.

Sierra Sciences is another company racing to cheat death. Its focus is on treatments that can lengthen telomeres – the “caps” at the end of each strand of DNA. Telomeres get shorter each time a cell copies itself. Because our cells copy themselves throughout our lives, the telomeres eventually get very short, and our cells cannot regenerate: we get old.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/22/silicon-valley-immortality-blood-infusion-gene-therapy