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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Jonathan Weiners book was a great read on the beach at Long Beach in California. It is a first class introduction to the subject and a stress free read. As far as aging itself there are various routes being pursued that will eventually achieve the goal of radical life extension. Personally I am very confident that the SENS project will come to fruition and that Aubrey de Grey is very much on the right track. The compelling piece of proof to support Aubrey’s theory is that our risk of dying doubles every 8 years although there is some argument as to whether this is every 7, 8 or 9 years, regardless lets call it 8 and take as an example the fact that your risk of death within a year at age 14 is 1 in 2000 but it increases exponentially so that at 22 it is double what it was at 14 and at 30 double what it was at 22. This doubling every eight years does not become a major problem until you reach early middle age because it starts off at such a low level but the rate of increase is exponential as opposed to linear so it accelerates rapidly with increasing age. What is abundantly clear is that the only likely cause for this increasing risk of mortality is the accumulation of junk in the body and the genetic damage to our DNA which builds up over time. Aubrey's theory that if we intervened and removed some of the damage we would make a person biologically younger certainly makes sense. The vital thing is that If it were to turn out that the Aubrey de Grey theory was wrong (or partially wrong) or that we had overlooked something vital then great promise is still beckoning as he acknowledges himself via other breakthroughs in biotechnology and nanotechnology. I am confident that the biotec revolution will yield significant increases in lifespan regardless, the key factor is that Aubrey's role is vital because he is the catalyst that is driving things forward and encouraging people in unrelated fields to work together. I cover quite a lot of areas regarding Aubrey de Grey and other people and organisations involved in combating aging on one of my websites at http://drjohnty.com/ In ending I have to say that the thing that never fails to amaze me is Aubrey's focus and determination to succeed. Personally I feel that if anyone can pull scientists together from all these different areas of research and end up saving 100,000 lives per day it is Dr Aubrey de Grey. You can check out the latest information at http://www.sens.org/

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

For indefinite lifespan, you have to cure cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and damage to non-repairing tissues like ligaments, among many other problems.

I believe Aubrey de Grey has provided a likely cure for cancer as part of snes.

Heart disease should not be a problem (Scientists discover new method for regenerating heart muscle by direct reprogramming A strategy to fix a broken heart Also search for "total artificial heart")

Damage to non-reparing tissue is a mute point if they are able to repair a heart (it's super non-reparing itself). About here I'll also throw in stemcell research wich can be used to repair "non-repairing tissues".

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