By no means say die | MIT Know-how Overview

That is principally fairly cool. Beats the choice, as they are saying. However one decidedly uncool factor about being virtually 50 is that my “dangerous” LDL ldl cholesterol is just too excessive. The apparent resolution right here is to enhance my weight loss plan and get extra train. But when that had been really easy, nobody would have excessive ldl cholesterol, proper? Another choice could be to go on statins—use medicine to convey it down. A number of individuals do that, nevertheless it’s a remedy, not a remedy, and the unintended effects may be intense. 

Or, simply perhaps, I may have my genes edited utilizing CRISPR, as a affected person in New Zealand not too long ago did, to completely scale back my LDL. On condition that coronary heart illness is a number one reason for loss of life, that might meaningfully lengthen my life. There’s nonetheless a lot to study concerning the effectiveness of such a remedy, however the mere prospect is fairly wonderful. 

The issues we are able to do to change our our bodies right now would have gave the impression of science fiction only a few years in the past. Scratch that—a few of them nonetheless sound like science fiction. Growing older and loss of life have lengthy been our inevitable fates, constants of life that start with delivery. However what if growing old isn’t inevitable? What if we may gradual and even reverse the method? This can be much less far-fetched than you think about.

A flotilla of billionaires and Silicon Valley elites, and even the Saudi royal household, have poured staggering quantities of cash into this query, funding startups and analysis that search to increase our time on Earth. Antonio Regalado has the story of the search for medical rejuvenation: researchers need to reprogram our cells to make them younger once more, letting us lead longer, more healthy lives. 

Or much more intriguing: What if we may cheat loss of life and reside endlessly? As a result of we are able to. Or at the least our digital replicas can, as Charlotte Jee discovered when she skilled an AI to create simulacra of her mother and father. The expertise she explored is one in all a number of meant to let the residing commune with the lifeless, on this case through Amazon Alexa. 

However even when we are able to reside endlessly in a wise speaker, for the time being there’s nonetheless no manner round loss of life. After all, there are lots of people engaged on that. Maybe you would possibly need to have your corpse preserved at −196 °C within the hopes of being introduced again to life once more at some point. The sphere of cryonics continues to be trucking alongside, even whether it is “a hopeless aspiration that reveals an appalling ignorance of biology,” as one scientist places it. 

For individuals who have accepted their destiny however need their loss of life to assist others reside longer, there’s all the time the potential for donating one’s physique to science. Whereas that’s one thing you might have absolutely heard of, it’s nothing like what you might have most likely imagined. Abby Ohlheiser pulls again the curtain to disclose how this intimate course of really works. 

I hope this difficulty serves up quite a bit for you to consider. As all the time, I’d love to listen to your ideas. You’ll be able to attain me at mat.honan@technologyreview.com.

See you on the opposite aspect,

Mat