WEBVTT - Shades of de Grey 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.000 Forward Thinking. Hello everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.360 audio podcast that looks at the future and s as well. 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.279 We know where we're going, but we don't know where 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.440 we've been. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Volkeman, and I'm 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.239 Joe McCormick. So today we wanted to talk about a 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:30.360 guy who's had some fairly exciting and controversial ideas, Aubrey 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.320 de Gray. And this is someone who has sort of 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.760 dedicated the second half of his professional life to figuring 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:42.000 out how to defeat the symptoms of aging. You may 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:46.120 have seen him in various mind expanding videos on the Internet. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.240 He's a uh, scraggly looking fellow with a gigantic beard. 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.400 He's kind of like a latter day rest sputant. David 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.000 David step of Forbes called it his rip Van Winkle 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.960 beard ever, which I really like, Every single article I 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.240 have ever read had anything to do with him, had 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.160 at least a part of a paragraph dedicated to this 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.520 man's beard. And indeed it is impressive. His beard. It's 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.200 like a tree. It is it is he he's got. 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.720 He's been on Ted Talks. He's we've got it. We've 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.759 got a feature on him on Curiosity Project. And uh, 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.720 it's because he has some pretty interesting ideas of how 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.880 to combat the symptoms of aging. And he comes from 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:31.080 this from a really interesting pathway because he didn't start 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.400 out as a biologist. He started out as computer scientist, 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.800 specifically focusing our artificial intelligence, right, and he's never actually 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:40.679 been well, I mean, he he has studied a lot 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:45.600 of biology, but he's studied theoretical biology, and so he's 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.440 sort of approaching this from the perspective of an engineer, 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:53.200 which has some doctors and other people within the medical 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:57.560 field concerned that perhaps it's an oversimplified you. But I'm 0:01:57.600 --> 0:01:59.640 kind of getting ahead of myself. We should sort of 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.480 talk or about his area of interest and and what 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.560 it is he's trying to accomplish. So, first of all, 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.720 you could say that he's a gerontologist in a way, 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:14.160 that's someone who studies aging. So that's the whole area 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:19.519 of the study of aging is gerontology. And he is well, 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.080 he formed this this this organization called the Strategies for 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:28.040 Engineered Negligible Senescence that again sends send there you go 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:34.600 with the acronym negligible senescence, and so senescence that means something. 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.280 What does senescence mean? All right? Well, so, so cells, 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.800 normal healthy cells go through a life process in three stages. 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.320 First you've got normal healthy cell division, which is mitosis um. 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.119 And then eventually the cells will stop dividing and that's 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.399 called senescence um. After that you have cell death, which 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:56.920 is a poptosis. But that that comes later and and 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:02.240 is debatably awesome for your right. So this idea of 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:07.519 the negligible engineered sinescence or sentizens depending upon how it's pronounced, 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.400 I honestly don't know. Uh. The idea here is that 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.600 we are trying to find a way to to halt 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.239 that that phase of of of an organism's life where 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.960 the cells are no longer dividing in a healthy way 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.000 or they're dying off too early. Essentially, the ideas to 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.400 try and preserve an organism's healthy state at the peak 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:36.040 of its life. So, for example, the numbers that I 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.440 tend to hear for a human according to the Aubrey 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.760 de Gray stuff, is between the ages of five and 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:46.720 twenty nine, right and there where you are in theory 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.840 at your healthiest at least as far as you know 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:54.160 an average person is concerned. So, uh, it's all about 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:59.480 trying to create this this uh solution or actually series 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.200 of solution to maintain that kind of level of health 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.800 uh indefinitely. And it may extend your life, it may not, 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.080 but at any rate, what the the ideally, what it 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.720 would do is allow you to have a healthy, active 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:18.400 life throughout your life. Right. He said several times that 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.080 that added lifespan is not the point of all of this. 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.080 It's it's really quality of life that he's looking for, right, 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.919 Although he's also talked about how he would love to 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:30.920 live to a thousands that he could read all the 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:32.920 books he'd want to re I mean, he wants to 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.479 see when when some of us, many of us, a 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.520 few of us. I think we've already established that I'm 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:42.880 planning on trading in Joe's immortality for double immortality for myself, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.800 as I recall from our previous podcast. More right, so, yeah, 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.520 I need to be twice as immortal. But he lays 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.120 out the Gray lays out seven principle mechanisms of aging 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.400 and or you can also think of this as different 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.920 types of damage. This is interesting because I think most 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:04.440 people don't think about what actually happens when we age. 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.840 They don't realize it's just it's the cumulative effect of 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:12.360 a series of processes, several biological processes exactly. And so 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:16.040 any solution would not be, like I said, just one solution. 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.159 It would have to be multiple solutions to meet all 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:24.479 the requirements to tou to cancel out these seven principles 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.599 of aging. So what is aging at its core? Well, 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.960 it's the way he breaks it down, because he's looking 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:36.080 at aging as these various types of damage. He has 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.039 the seven different types. The first three he lays out 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:43.360 our types of cellular damage. The first is this loss 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:47.200 of cells, the idea that you have cells that die 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.160 and they aren't replicated, so there's not they're not being 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.760 replenished in any way. So you could have muscle loss, 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:54.800 bone loss, that kind of thing. And a lot of 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.799 these different types of damage that he talks about relate 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:03.000 to specific kinds of disease is or or conditions that 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:07.120 you are probably familiar with. So does this particular problem 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.000 have anything to do with what I've heard of the 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.240 hay Flick limit. Yes, that would be the limit that 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.040 was proposed by Dr Leonard hay Flick back in nineteen 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.560 sixty five, and he he observed that that cell death 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.640 process that I mentioned earlier, that apoptosis and this this 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.200 is a natural process. It's really useful for you know, 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:31.920 for us not having webbed hands um in because because 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.840 embryos when when you're when you're going through development, UM, 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.120 not all parts of you wind up being you. You know, 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.240 it's we lose your tails, we lose the webbing between 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.760 our fingers, and so that's very useful for that. UM. 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.520 Apoptosis goes on during menstruation. It's really great for fighting 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.800 off viruses and cancers. UM. However, like Jonathan was saying, 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.120 at a certain point, your cells are dying off and 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.440 they're not being replenished, right, So that that's one thing 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.880 that we would need to address. And he has he's 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.920 named the various UH solutions, or at least the kind 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.840 of overview of what the solution might be. Keeping in mind, 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:09.440 we don't have solutions for all this. If we did, 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.880 we'd already know or at least we'd all be healthier. 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.680 But it's sort of that he's named what the overall 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.080 approach would have to be in order to you know, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.720 address this issue. So in this case he calls the 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:28.360 this part replena sends each one having sends at the 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.640 end of it, sc and s which is that acronym, 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:34.520 So that that's the first one is the loss of cells, 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:38.480 you know, figuring out how to make sure that cells continue. 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.160 He's replenished. He's proposed stem cell therapy for that one 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.000 as being kind of the leading Yeah, and in fact, 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.360 stem cells are just kind of magic. They're unicorns. They're 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.040 pretty much the They're made of unicorn nichols. That's a 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.440 science fact, guy, So you can just buy that straight 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.880 from a think geek. You get that canned unicorn meat 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.000 you've got. That's not the way that works. Cells they're 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.920 like the they're like the phenomena of medicine, right right exactly. 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.680 These are the cells that have the potential to develop 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.440 into other types of cells. And depending upon what kind 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.480 of stem cells you're talking about, the variety of cells 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.480 they can turn into is very wide or very narrow, 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.160 because not all stem cells are the kind where this 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.440 this one proto cell could be anything. Some of them are. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.920 They can be any type of vascular tissue, that kind 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:25.760 of thing. So it all depends on the type of 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:27.920 stem cell. But anyway, yes, he does say that that 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:31.320 is one potential way we could meet this challenge, and 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.800 in fact, from why I understand it might be one 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.400 of those things that would be a requirement because some 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:40.640 of the other solutions he's proposed would UH end up 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.559 affecting us in such a way that we would have 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.320 to have stem cell treatment in order to UH to 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.679 to combat some of the side effects we could have 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.679 from treatments from the other principles. This is where it 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:53.640 starts getting complicated. But we haven't even gotten into principle 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.160 number two. You okay, let's go to number two. Thank you. 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.000 Number two is that uh, there are two different version 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:02.720 of this, so this is technically two and three. So 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.080 number two is that you end up with too many 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.320 cells because the cells don't die when they are supposed 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:14.000 to UH. And that one he suggested a pop apop 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.440 apopto sends this is so hard to say because of 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:19.880 the sens acronym at the end. That was the that 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.640 was his solution or overview of what the solution would 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:24.800 need to be to take care of that problem. And 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.840 the other type was too many cells because these cells 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.800 divide when they aren't supposed to, which sounds like cancer exactly. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.240 That's that's pretty much what cancer is. And so his 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:37.880 overview of what the solution would have to be is 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.120 called onco sens which oncology that makes sense, you know, sure, yeah, yeah, 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.040 because because cancer is actually pretty cool. I mean, not 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.800 when you have it, obviously that's terrible, but um, but 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.800 but the the way that cancer cells don't die is 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:53.840 kind of terrific, and so people are doing a lot 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:55.920 of studying into that to see if we can use 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.480 that to extrapolate this idea that you can take something 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:04.520 that is very harmful in one one manifestation, but find 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.320 a way of applying some of that in a medicinal 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:13.440 way in order to prolonged life. It's it's a fantastic 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:15.040 idea if we can make it work. I mean, we've 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.160 seen this in other applications as well, not just with cancer, 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.960 things like viruses. We've seen medicine used viruses in order 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.959 to have uh nanomedicine delivered to particular parts. If you 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.880 can reprogram them, then you can get them to do it. Yeah, exactly, 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.000 that you can code of virus shell with a certain 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.679 type of protein and theoretically it'll seek out the right 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:41.040 kind of cells to deliver a cellular amount of of medication, 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.880 So you're dosing particular cells. So you know, we see 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.120 this where we're using things that were at one point 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.679 potentially hazardous or deadly, uh, in other ways to have 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:56.400 to improve our lives. So that might work out, but 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.280 we still have to figure out how to actually accomplish 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.440 any of that. Well, not only that, but how do 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:05.720 we actually stop the uncontrolled division? How do we stop 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:10.400 the cancer part of cancer and utilize the beneficial aspects 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.880 while getting rid of the ones that are deadly? And uh, 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:19.040 he's thinking about mainly things like a gene therapy as 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.520 an approach. And again that's one of those approaches that 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.120 some people say may oversimplify the matter, although it's really 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.920 kind of hard to say right now, because you can 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.320 you can frame these approaches in such general language as 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.160 for them to be um, they can fit any definition 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:37.880 in a sense, you know, like if you if you 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.679 just sit there and say, someday we will be able 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.480 to do this, it's kind of hard to refute that. 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.480 All right, Well, that's the three types of cellular damage, 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.160 but then there's three types of molecular damage. One of 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.079 those is damage to DNA, specifically in mitochondria. These are 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:57.840 the cellular powerhouses. This is an an energy element to 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.800 the way cells live. They have their own DNA, mitochondrial 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:06.440 DNA and UH. Unlike the DNA that you find in 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.760 a cell nucleus, which has some repair systems built up 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:15.960 around it to help maintain that DNA's integrity, the mitochondrial 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.720 DNA they don't have that kind of support system, so 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.200 they are more vulnerable to various types of mutations, right 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.200 and there they exist in a highly oxidized environment, which 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.040 makes them even more susceptible to damage than a lot 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:32.760 of other little cellular bits. Right. So that's that's another 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:36.160 one of the ones that he's identified, and Mito sends, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.280 which is probably the easiest one to pronounce, is his 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.680 overview of the solution to that. Then you have two 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:47.080 different types of molecular junk or garbage, depending depending upon 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.760 which one you read, but in any case, it's unwanted 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:54.280 molecules that begin to accumulate within an organism and some 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:59.720 accumulates inside cells, which these are byproducts of cellular process 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.720 e is um. One example of this would be cardiovascular 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.679 disease that it can manifest in that way. The approach 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.760 that that Degray suggests is called liso sins. And then 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:16.680 there's the molecular junk that accumulates outside a cell's wall, 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.559 so in between cells, and this is created through metabolism 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.280 uh and de Gray points out that the an example 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.600 of this could be manifested in something like Alzheimer's or 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:32.480 diabetes and h a millocin's or um. Yeah, and a 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:34.680 millocent's is the name of the approach that you would 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.040 have to address this issue. So those are the three 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.880 types of molecular damage, right, and and there are there 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.559 are already processes going on inside your body that are 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:45.600 that are taking care of some of this junk. The 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.280 the licensome with within cells is the organ that kind 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.200 of digests some of this junk, but it can't digest everything. 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.599 And say, some of the therapy that he's suggesting is 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.840 adding extra enzymes in there to drive the licensome to 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.240 to get rid of more stuff than it currently can. Right, 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.440 Some of these molecules that get formed turned into stuff 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.480 that cells just can't process, and so it just accumulates. 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:09.560 That's why they call it junk. It's this idea of 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.440 kind of like, ah, if you've ever lived with someone 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:15.800 who is a hoarder, when you walk into the room 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.440 and you just realize that tomorrow I will not be 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.880 able to open this door. Uh, same sort of thing. 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.600 These cells get bogged down with lots of molecules that 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.120 they cannot deal with, and then eventually that causes problems 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.640 outside of your cells. The the immune system process, it's 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.360 called phagocytosis, that's supposed to take care of this, and 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.760 it and it does to a certain extent, but just 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.440 from the root, like eating, you've got some cells that 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.920 come and eat up the junk exactly. Yeah. Yeah, but 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:44.240 and and so his his proposition is to kind of 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:48.720 chemically amp up that process. Right. And then the final principle. 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.080 So we've got the three types of cellular damage, three 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.400 types of molecular damage. The final principle is called cross linking. 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.080 And this has to do with tissue. So you have 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.400 tissues that that hold things into place, kind of give 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.480 a shape, sort of a scaffolding, if you will, for 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.600 various types of so that all your cells aren't just 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:07.840 floating free within your body, right, You're not just a 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:12.080 big lobby massive cells. It's very important as far as 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.040 I'm concerned, But they're supposed to be there's in most cases, 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.920 they're supposed to be elastic, right, So the idea being 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:23.360 that they can, uh, they can change in shape and 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.920 uh and maintain and organisms. Uh. Yeah, that's why you 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.760 can can push on your skin and have it bounce back. Yeah, 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.520 it's or it's why your your tendons will hold your 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.520 muscles in place but not restrict them so that you 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.960 can't actually flex them that sort of thing, or your 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.000 heart muscles as well. I mean, it's it's important stuff. 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.640 But the problem is that as you age, uh, there 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.040 are these proteins that can form cross links between a 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:55.240 tissues lattice like structure, which then gives it rigidity. So 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.520 something that was once elastic becomes more stiff and rigid 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.880 as time goes on, and this obviously can inhibit it's 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.240 your your various organs ability to do their jobs. So 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.840 that's something else that has to be addressed as you age. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.600 And the overall process that he names in this one 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.600 is called glyco sends. So those are the seven principles 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.080 of aging, the various symptoms of aging that he wants 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:26.200 to try and eliminate through various means and uh, and 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:31.040 some of them scientists I think agree, are more reasonable 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.960 than others. Some of them, I think some scientists and 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.600 doctors would say, are oversimplifications of the problem, or at 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:42.560 least the solutions are so vague as to not be 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:48.320 practical in the foreseeable future. So I remember a while 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:52.040 back he was challenging people to disprove this wasn't he Yeah, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:56.280 he had his Methuselah project. And also there was a 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:01.680 the magazine Technology Review, which comes from Might heat Uh. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.880 They got together and put up ten thousand dollars each 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:09.440 the twenty dollars total as a challenge to anyone who 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:14.560 could draw up a an explanation that would disprove the 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.639 SINS approach, saying that is there something that's been overlooked, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.160 or is there a fundamental flaw, or is there something 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:26.639 about this approach that is simply not likely or feasible. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:32.920 And they received I think they received seven or eight responses, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:37.159 but only a few of them were considered, only a 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.160 few of them actually met the requirements that were set 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:45.080 out by the challenge, and ultimately the judges, who were impartial, 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:50.199 came to the conclusion that no one had presented a 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.880 a any finite yeah, anything that would actually say yeah, 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.200 this disproves. So no one won the prize. However, it's 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:03.160 not exactly a slam dunk win for Degray either, because 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:08.080 they also said that, uh, you haven't really defined this 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:12.280 in a way that is very scientific, right. It's not 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.000 like a sign yet. It's not a scientific hypothesis that 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.520 you can set out to clinically disproved, right, So I 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.160 want to read a couple of little comments that we're 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.439 actually not little, so a couple of significant comments that 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.640 one of the judges said is Nathan Mervhold who who 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.399 said this at issue is the conflict between the scientific 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.679 process and the ambiguous status of ideas that have not 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:39.040 yet been subjected to that process. The scientific process requires 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:43.240 evidence through independent experimentation or observation in order to accord 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.840 credibility to a hypothesis. SINS is a collection of hypotheses 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.399 that have mostly not been subjected to that process and 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.560 thus cannot rise to the level of being scientifically verified. However, 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.320 by the same token, the ideas of SINS have not 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:02.439 been conclusively disproved. SINS exists in a middle ground of 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.800 yet to be tested ideas that some people may find intriguing, 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.280 but which others are free to doubt. And he goes 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.919 on quite a bit more says that that Sends as 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.959 many unsupported claims and is certainly not scientifically proven. Uh. 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.520 I personally would be surprised if Degray is correct in 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.280 the majority of his claims. However, I don't think that 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:28.280 the people who submitted the rebuttals have provided that Sends 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.200 is false. That would require more research. In some cases, 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.560 SINS makes claims that run parallel to existing research while 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.760 being more sensational. Future investigation into those areas will almost 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.240 certainly illuminate the controversy. Except this was England, so it 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:48.000 might have been controversy. But ut at any rate, uh, 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.760 it goes others people had similar things to say. Another person, 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:56.399 Craig Venter, said, uh that in my view, the critics 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.560 have not demonstrated that SINS is unworthy of discussion, but 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.200 the propo oponents of sense have not made a compelling 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.400 case for it. So, in other words, nobody came out 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:09.520 looking great out of that experience. From a little bit 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.399 that I've heard Aubrey de Gray talking, I've gotten the 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:19.160 impression that he's very concerned with UM keeping possibilities open. 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.600 I get the impression that his main objective is to 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.720 get people to think about things that they might otherwise 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.040 not think about. I would agree with that. I think 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.960 that he has his concern well. He often says that 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.760 he thinks, if if we really dedicate a lot of 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:43.159 resources to looking at ways of defeating the symptoms of aging, 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.479 then in the case of mice, because this is really 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.359 why he's talking about right now, is just experimenting with 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.239 mice and not on people yet, but that if we 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:56.560 were to really constant I mean it's important thing, but 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.760 that he would concentrate. If we really concentrate, we might 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:04.119 be able to crack the the problem within ten years. 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.360 So if we don't really concentrate, if we take our time, 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.040 it may be more like forty and if we're really 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.760 not interested in it might take one hundred. Uh. Now, personally, 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.639 I think a lot of his concerns are going to 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:23.000 be taken care of just from other disciplines that are 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.560 also working on similar problems, right, I mean, you have 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.479 the whole field of oncology that's working on the cancer problem, 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.320 and it may be that the solution is very similar 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.720 to the one that degree proposes, or it may be 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:39.760 something totally different. But uh, I think that if you're 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.960 looking as a unified discipline, yes, it's going to be 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.280 one of those things that you know might be a 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:51.679 tough sell just because it sounds a little outlandish when 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:53.679 you first think about it, like I want to to 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.679 stop to halt the process of aging or or the 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.480 symptoms of aging, if you prefer. But I do think 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:02.840 there are plenty of different disciplines out there that are 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:05.880 working on these individual pieces and that's going to continue. 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:09.000 And absolutely, and there's there's already, I mean there's there's 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:12.600 a bunch of examples from nature of animals that don't 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.679 quite behave the way that that aging says that they should. 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.040 Oh yeah, I mean well, i'd say one fact that 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:24.600 is in de grace favor is that, um, that senescence 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.919 is or that you know, normal rate, the kind of 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:32.760 senescence that humans experience is not a guarantee across the 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:37.040 entire animal kingdom. Um, like you could. Uh. Well, for 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:38.680 so for a while you may have seen this, there 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.600 were these claims going around the internet that lobsters are immortal. 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:44.920 Have you heard this? Yeah, I I remember hearing that 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.560 phrase somewhere, and I never looked into it because I 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:53.560 just got jealous. I also kept on imagining and they're 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:57.320 just a lobster immortals battling it out until one of 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.480 them's lives. Yeah, there can be only one lobster. That's 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:02.399 another highlander joke. I think I made one in the 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:06.480 last podcast to several Uh no, well, it turns out 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:09.960 this isn't exactly true. Um, so it's not. We don't 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:12.199 have any evidence. As far as I can tell just 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:15.320 from my research, we don't have any evidence that lobsters 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.359 can live forever. Um, but we do have but we 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:22.240 keep eating them. They're so delicious. That's the trouble. Every 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:25.320 time we try to study them, the scientists end up 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:28.720 getting some butter. They should just have made do it 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:32.440 because I'm allergic to lobsters. Oh wow, so you could 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:36.879 get a grant. Yeah yeah, um, but no. So okay, 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:41.600 here's what is interesting about lobsters. So um, they we 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:44.240 we don't have any evidence that they would live forever 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:47.440 if they weren't killed by you know, some fish eating 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:51.760 them or something like that. But we do have evidence 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.520