Lifeboat Foundation

Research on people’s reaction to life extension is rather rare; this article discusses two such papers.

Two papers by Partridge et al [1, 2], both published in 2009, provide the somewhat rare opportunity to examine some concerns about life extension as formulated by actual people, rather than their general, more abstract forms. As highlighted in the studies, research on the public’s perception of life extension science has been very much neglected; this, in turn, has made it harder to identify the misconceptions and incorrect information fueling some common concerns about life extension and made it even harder to address those very concerns. Needless to say, the more that the public views life extension negatively, the less supportive that it will probably be, which is bad news for researchers.

The papers present the results of several interviews, conducted either in person or on the phone, aimed at understanding what ethical concerns the interviewees had about life extension and what implications they thought extended human lifespans would have for themselves and for society. The research was conducted on a sample of the Australian population only, but the issues they raised were entirely representative of a typical discussion about life extension. In both studies, the interviewees were presented with the general premise of possibly slowing down aging and the onset of age-related diseases in order to greatly extend human healthy lifespan.

Continue reading “Popular reactions to life extension” »

Who wants to lose weight, feel great, and live a long and healthy life, and what does it take to achieve these goals? Diet and exercise are equally important in long-term health, but let’s look at what recent science is telling us about the healthiest diets.

This article will rely heavily on University of Southern California professor Valter Longo’s work because I consider it to be the gold standard for nutrition research, and his recommendations in his book The Longevity Diet are well-supported with both data and good logic. Longo is the director of the Longevity Institute at USC and the IFOM Program on Longevity and Cancer in Milan.

He comes from an area of Italy known for very long lives, and part of his research focus has been looking at similar areas around the world and why those people live so much longer than normal.

Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered that as we age, our cells’ nuclear membranes become misshapen, which stops our genes from working properly.

Nuclear membranes become distorted with age

The DNA in all our cells is the same; however, the cells in our body show a great range of variation and function. How can this be when they have the same DNA? It all comes down to gene expression and which genes are turned off and which are turned on. For example, certain genes must be turned on in a cell for it to be a liver cell; those same genes need to be turned off for it to be a brain cell. If the correct genes are not turned off, problems occur.

Continue reading “Age-Related Changes to the Nuclear Membrane Alter Gene Expression” »

A new finding from the UVA School of Medicine suggests that fatty liver disease and other effects of aging may be the result of our cells’ nuclei getting wrinkly.

Now that some time has passed since the release of Avengers: Infinity War, we should probably talk about Thanos, the nigh-omnipotent “Mad Titan” at the heart of Marvel’s latest blockbuster, and how he perfectly embodies one of the most pervasive societal misconceptions circling the topic of life extension. This might, therefore, be the first post here on LEAF that necessitates a spoiler warning, so here it is!

SPOILER ALERT — IF YOU CARE ABOUT HAVING INFINITY WAR, WHICH IS AN EXCELLENT MOVIE THAT YOU SHOULD SEE, SPOILED, PLEASE ABANDON SHIP AND HEREUPON RETURN AFTER WATCHING

Continue reading “Thanos, Overpopulation, and How to Save the Universe” »

An interesting interview with one of the Dog Aging Project’s lead scientists, Dr. Matt Kaeberlein.

As we discussed in a recent article about Prof. George Church’s new startup, endeavors to undo aging aren’t directed exclusively toward human aging; extending the healthy lifespan of our pet dogs and cats is also currently being researched. The Dog Aging Project (DAP) has been around quite a bit longer than Prof. Church’s startup, and today, we have the pleasure to bring you an interview with one of the lead scientists behind it, Dr. Matt Kaeberlein.

In much the same way that other projects are aiming to extend healthy human lifespan, the DAP team intends to do the same, targeting the aging processes directly. Given the rate of progress in geroscience over the past years, Dr. Kaeberlein and his team are optimistic that, in the near future, the interventions that have been shown to slow down aging in mice and rats could do the same in our furry companions.

Continue reading “Dr. Matt Kaeberlein – The Dog Aging Project” »

Long story in The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/…/biohacking-transhumanism-aa… #transhumanism #biohacking

On the morning of 29 April, staff at the Soulex spa in Washington DC discovered the lifeless body of one of its clients lying face down in a sensory deprivation tank. The body was that of 28-year-old Aaron Traywick, who less than three months earlier had injected himself live on stage at an event in Austin, Texas, with an untested gene therapy that he claimed could cure herpes.

Continue reading “Live forever or die trying: Meet the biohackers who fear their work could get them killed” »

This in depth story has recently been translated to English: https://ciencias.uautonoma.cl/…/we-want-to-declare-ageing-a…?

Zoltan Istvan is currently a Libertarian candidate for Governor in California, also former 2016’s US presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party and he is known around the world as someone that advocates for Transhumanism, a public figure in science and technology.

Continue reading “We want to declare ageing a disease” »

Aging (Albany NY). 2017 Feb 14;9:419–446. doi: 10.18632/aging.101168.

Quach A, Levine ME, Tanaka T, Lu AT, Chen BH, Ferrucci L, Ritz B³ Bandinelli S, Neuhouser ML, Beasley JM, Snetselaar L, Wallace RB, Tsao PS^9,10, Absher D¹¹, Assimes TL, Stewart JD¹², Li Y^13,14, Hou L^15,16, Baccarelli AA¹⁷, Whitsel EA^12,18, Horvath S^1,19.