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As an animal lover, I don't normally like to discuss research involving lab animals due to the cruelty factor, which this unfortunately has, but the impact of this research will have far reaching effects for the world, hence I'm posting about it. It's also why I'm not quoting any passages from it, as all the important ones include this kind of distressing stuff.
Aging of all living things is normally considered to be a one way process inevitably leading to declining health and death, no matter how healthy your lifestyle is and being lucky enough to avoid things like cancer etc. However, scientists really have reversed aging in mice, which has massive implications for the world. As such, I never doubted that we would see this technology, just not quite this quickly. See the article for full details of this research.
At first blush, this would seem to be a great thing for the human race, except that we haven't take power and corruption into account. Obviously the very wealthy are going to get this first and could end up living for hundreds of years at the expense of the ordinary person, but far worse, are the dictators of this world.
Just imagine Putin living an extended life, healthy and full of energy. The pain and suffering he could then inflict on the world would be orders of magnitude greater than the murderous awfulness that he's putting Ukraine through now, aged 70, and suspected of having terminal cancer. Then, add in every other tinpot dictator to the mix, eg North Korea, and you have a never ending nightmare on your hands. Unfortunately, given the effectiveness of this treatment on these poor mice, it may well come to pass. There are cases that where something can be done, doesn't mean that it should be done. Unfortunately, the momentum for this will be unstoppable.
The other aspect of this of course is an uncontrolled human population explosion if most people lived extended lives and continued to have lots of kids as our planet only has a finite capacity to support life, which is already being reached in some ways. There's a minefied right there.
What do you think of this development?
Aging of all living things is normally considered to be a one way process inevitably leading to declining health and death, no matter how healthy your lifestyle is and being lucky enough to avoid things like cancer etc. However, scientists really have reversed aging in mice, which has massive implications for the world. As such, I never doubted that we would see this technology, just not quite this quickly. See the article for full details of this research.
At first blush, this would seem to be a great thing for the human race, except that we haven't take power and corruption into account. Obviously the very wealthy are going to get this first and could end up living for hundreds of years at the expense of the ordinary person, but far worse, are the dictators of this world.
Just imagine Putin living an extended life, healthy and full of energy. The pain and suffering he could then inflict on the world would be orders of magnitude greater than the murderous awfulness that he's putting Ukraine through now, aged 70, and suspected of having terminal cancer. Then, add in every other tinpot dictator to the mix, eg North Korea, and you have a never ending nightmare on your hands. Unfortunately, given the effectiveness of this treatment on these poor mice, it may well come to pass. There are cases that where something can be done, doesn't mean that it should be done. Unfortunately, the momentum for this will be unstoppable.
The other aspect of this of course is an uncontrolled human population explosion if most people lived extended lives and continued to have lots of kids as our planet only has a finite capacity to support life, which is already being reached in some ways. There's a minefied right there.
What do you think of this development?
Old mice grow young again in study. Can people do the same? | CNN
All mammals hold a backup copy of cellular youth, a new study says. All we have to do is trigger the switch to turn back the clock, researchers say.
edition.cnn.com