WEBVTT - Immortality by 2030, Del Boca Vista + Old Clam Chowder 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.800 Really now, really. 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:11.840 Really now, really welcome. I'm Peter Tilman. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.680 Next to me is my good friend I like that, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.760 Jason Alexander, and we're here to do another episode of 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.320 Really No Really. Today's episode A little is very smooth. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:24.160 By the way, that was the best we've ever done. 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.079 I'm sorry I interrupted him. By the way, I killed 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:27.640 the killed that you killed. 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.400 I was commenting almost too professional. Yeah, but thank you. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:33.320 I couldn't let it go. I couldn't let it go. 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.960 So this is a pretty heady episode. I really know, 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.279 really because I saw that Ray Kurtzwall, who was a 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:44.600 futurist who they say has one of the best records 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:47.320 for predicting things that have come true. 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:49.560 The Jimmy, the Greek of futurists. 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:52.720 By the way, he's saying, thank you for that. Yeah, 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.600 he's the Nate Silver. In nineteen ninety he protected the 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.400 world's best chess player would lose to a computer by 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.200 two things, and it happened in nineteen ninety seven, So 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:07.199 he was off when when Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov, Yes, 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.880 he said, by twenty twenty three one thousand dollars laptop, 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.480 we have a human brains, computing power and storage capability 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:17.520 and many other things. And the latest thing he said 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.119 was that humans will achieve immortality in eight years. He's 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.720 a Google engineer, really really, no, really, and he says 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.399 it will happen with a combination of genetics, the nanotechnology. 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.800 You know that we'll be able to repair, yes, and robotics. Yes, 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:33.840 we know that. 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.880 Elon Musk has said things about melding the brain with AI. 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.520 So everything he says is true and happens. 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.400 Well, nice cars, yeah, but we wanted to get somebody 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:47.120 on to find out because this is way above our 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.920 pay grade. Yes, so we said, what the hey, let's 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:51.760 get an expert. Let's get an expert, and then we 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:52.360 found them. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.920 So today we'll be chatting with a gentleman who is 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:59.600 the Professor of Biological Gerontology at the University of Brighton. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.400 He is the past chair of the British Society for 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.200 Research on Aging and the American Aging Association. He's been 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.560 studying the relationship between cellular centizens, which we will find 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.160 out more about, and aging for more than thirty years. 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.079 He's been named one of the top one hundred longevity 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.400 leaders by Aging Analytics. Please welcome from the University of Brighton. 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.560 Professor of biological gerontology, Professor Richard Farreger. 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:24.639 How are you doing, professor? 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.440 Very well? Thank you, gentlemen, thank you for having me 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.440 on the show, particularly when the introductions apparently have reached 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:36.880 their peat. This is the point where it all comes 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:38.000 to rut came to the peak. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.000 I just have to say right off the top that 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.160 the accent and the tie, this is the classiest we 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:44.360 will ever be on this show. 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:45.080 We know something. 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:47.520 My son used to say this if you're because he 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.799 went to England for a semester and he came back 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.320 and he said, in America, when a guy is in 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:53.320 a park yelling. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.120 The world's coming to in and we're all good, you. 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.120 Go, what a lunatic And you go, tell me more. 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:02.160 The world's coming so incredible and reason you go, okay, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:03.040 come to the house. 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:08.959 Like the TV channels, you know it comes from, Yeah, 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:09.920 it comes from you know. 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:10.880 You know. 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.400 I went into gerontology because I was growing up in 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.280 the seventies and like three TV channels and so all 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.080 of them were and there was nothing on, and it 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.320 encouraged you to go outside and on the wall and 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:28.120 wake something happen. So that's how I ended. That's how 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:29.480 I ended up there? What's your excent? 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:31.920 Nothing to do nothing, We're just talking to you. We 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:33.560 didn't go into it all right, Oh my god. 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.280 So the interesting thing is I get the overall question 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.200 from me and we can get into singularity and kurtswhile. 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.560 But as you get older, what actually endures? I mean 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.560 that's the biggest question. What's what's the what's the point 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:52.200 of living longer? So we're when you study this, is 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:53.560 that taken into consideration? 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:56.800 Yeah, I think too, I think to an accent. You know, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:01.000 the the immortality thing always kind of makes me because 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.760 it sits at the it sits at the opposite end 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:09.200 of a spectrum. If I do good a public understanding 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:14.400 of science lectures about one time in five there's a 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.200 guy who comes up to me and says, I don't 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:21.039 want to live forever. I always say that's great, because 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.680 you don't have the option. They almost look disappointed. And 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:27.680 it's strange because I there and thinking if I went 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.040 into a restaurant, you know, if he went into a restaurant, 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.880 I say, a waiter, and you know he opened the 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.080 menu and said, I really hate crabcakes, And I said, well, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.200 you're in luxer because we're not serving them. I wouldn't 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:44.920 expect the guy it's just mind, you serve me stuff 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.720 that I don't like. And at the other end, there 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:54.159 is this immortality thing, and it's often helpful to unpeck 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:59.080 I think what that means to the person who said 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.440 it along Inside the guy who says, you know, I 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.960 don't want to live forever, there's usually someone who says 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:10.240 I do. And rather than you know, just disappointing them 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:15.680 straight out, I try and let them down gently by saying, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:22.279 are you aware that you know? Forever? It's a bugger 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:27.039 of a long time. Actually, you know, a reasonable argument 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.120 can be made that it's all the time that there is. 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:35.040 This is a long time a humans, This is a 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:41.200 long time a style, multi stellar lifetime. 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:45.240 We're done and you got it. You got me. 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:53.800 Physic is gerontology, particularly in the way that you are 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:58.760 researching it is it is it about living longer or 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.680 living better longer or some combination. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:04.920 Well, this is where it becomes. This is where it 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:10.479 gets really interesting, because lying behind these kinds of discussions 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:15.240 is something that I think is going to be really important. 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.960 It's going to be really transformative, if not for us, 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.560 then for our kids, and I think that's incredibly hopeful. 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.960 And so, you know, as long as there have been people, 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.359 we've known that some think about how old you are 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.240 also affects how healthy you are. I think there's a 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:38.679 lot of evidence that there are a few common processes. 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.680 You can call them aging mechanisms if you want. I 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.520 tend to think of them as health maintenance mechanisms that 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.000 exist to keep us healthy. Problems start to occur as 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.040 they start to fail for the first time in human history. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.279 I think we've got a pretty good handle on what 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:02.000 some of those mechanisms are, and we can chat about 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:08.200 that if you would like. And this understanding is starting 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.400 to reach the point where we are starting to go 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:17.880 into clinical trials with some compounds based on this, and 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.640 most clinical trials fail. You know, the analogy that I 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.080 sometimes use with people is the difference. You know, a 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.360 clinical trial is a bit like getting an audition. Okay, 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.920 you've got an audition. You probably shouldn't be picking out 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.920 the place for your star on Hollywood Boulevard just yet. 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.560 I'm wondering which private island you're going to be. You know, 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.120 you're going to have to do a lot of those 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.000 if you make it there, and I think it's fair 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.000 to say the mechanisms are kind of screen testing. Well, 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:55.080 there's sixty ongoing trials I think, on drugs that destroy 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.000 sinn essence cells at the moment. 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.560 And can you just because I haven't written down here 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.520 and I have some understanding, but can you just talk 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.680 about sin essence for a moment and what that is? 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.120 Absolutely, I'm very happy to do that. So to say 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:14.240 that there seems to be good evidence for some biological 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:20.240 processes acting as what we call aging mechanisms, and if 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.520 you get rid of it, that slows aging down, and 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.600 if you increase the rate at which it appears at 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.880 speeds aging. Now, so what happens with Selson essence is this. 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:35.240 It was first discovered by a very bright guy called 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:40.880 Leonard Hayflick in the early sixties, and for reasons that 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.480 don't matter, for a little while or the twentieth early 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.520 twentieth century, it was believed that cells had no limits 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:51.640 to division. Hayflick showed that they did, and since they 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:56.679 had limits to division, this suggested that the accumulation of 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:02.720 these cells over time would contribute to aging and disease. 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.640 And so the way it works simply is this and 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.520 the normal cost of your life. You lose cells, that 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.199 loss has to be balanced by cell division, or you 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:16.439 run out of cells. That cell division is actively monitored 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.559 as part of an anti cancer mechanism because you pick 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.440 up most of the mutations that predispose you to cancer 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:31.600 when you're replicating DNA, and after a variable number of divisions, 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.559 that sell us two things. It will never divide again, 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:42.600 and it changes its behavior and it adopts a series 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:49.760 of damaging activities. Why is it doing this because it 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.360 wants to be found and killed by cells in your 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.040 immune system. It wants to be got rid of. The 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.840 problem is that your immune system is also made of cells, 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.240 and it is aging. And so when you're young, as 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.640 soon as you make a sinessence cell, it's clobbed by 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.720 your immune system. When you're kind of my age, it's 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.559 more like, you know, you ring the insurance company or 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.520 something like that, and it's just your call is important 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.679 to us. You will stay on the line, you know, 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.400 And it's kind of like that. So you start these 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:26.520 things start to build up, and this starts to cause 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:32.200 all sorts of problems in laboratory animals, where we've been 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:37.040 able to engineer them such that it's possible to remove 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:43.440 sinessence cells chemically, you see an increase in lifespan of 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:48.480 about twenty five percent, sometimes to thirty percent, and what 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.640 you also see as a big improvement in health. The 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.800 data that I like most is wheel running. If you 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.000 take these little mice that have had their sinessence cells 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.880 removed and you compare them to their littermates who've been 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.400 left alone, they run about twice as far and about 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.440 twice as fast, and no one's making these most run. 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:15.000 They're running more because they like it. And if you 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:19.800 could translate that into the human population, it's the difference 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:24.520 between being able to live independently in your own home, 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.160 you know, jog down to the shop to buy the 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.880 paper in the morning, or having to feel your world 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:32.959 kind of contract around you, not. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:34.120 Feeling at the key. 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.719 Basically, the key to all of this is controlling sin 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.720 essence cells. If you can get to the core of that, 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.079 that seems to be the key to life extension. 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.880 Yes, then now this is where the caveats started coming. 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:50.120 It's clear that at least one angle of attech would 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.400 be to either get rid of sin essence cells. There 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:57.120 are groups that are working on that stop them being 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:02.400 sinescent under certain indication, which is something I'm very interested in. 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.040 One of the things that I think is currently unknown 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:13.880 is how big the effect of the different aging mechanisms 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.240 we know about is in different species. So in mice, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.480 when you get rid of sin essence cells, you can 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.320 see a thirty to forty percent of groups and life 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.480 whether you would see an extension whether or in fact, 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.080 and the reason you're seeing the extension lifespan is the 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.640 animal is healthier. This is an important point to stress. 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.720 Sick things tend to die. Healthy things tend to live. 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:44.080 So if you are, like most reputable gerontologists most of 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.760 the time, trying to improve health, you get the lifespan 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:54.080 extension as a kind of beneficial side effect. But we 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:59.720 could be on the verge of real improvements in the 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:03.840 head health of our older population, and that is something 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:04.920 we sorely need. 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:18.280 Is there any research into animals that naturally seem to 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:24.400 live greater lifespans. I think it's I know there's sometoise tortoise, 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.000 it might be the Galapicus tortoise or something that seems 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:31.680 to on average live well past one hundred years. Is 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.520 anybody looking to those kinds of animals that have natural 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.880 longevity to see if there's something there. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.760 Some not much because if you think about the difficulties 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.000 and now you've ever seen a Galaphagus tortoise or the 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:49.640 Mauritian giant tortoise. Actually, honeymoon I did. I honeymooned in 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:53.760 Mauritius specifically to see a Mauritian giant tortoise. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:54.520 Wow did you? 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:55.959 And they? 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:56.400 I did? 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.960 And that they're misnamed. It shouldn't be called the Mauritia 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.880 giant tortoise. It should be called the Jesus Christ that 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.320 thinks the size of a sofa tortoise, which kind of 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.280 give you know, and this kind of that there's a 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.040 picture of me and the tortoise, and you know, one 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.240 of us is rin clear than the other, but not 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:20.800 by much. And you know, this illustrates the problem. It's 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:25.040 it's very, very difficult to do research and maintain a 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.760 colony of Mauritian giant tortoises that you could study. You know, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:36.240 some whale species are noticeably longer lived than humans. But 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.760 I would love to see the Grant committee. You know, 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.560 I just need a few, you know, one hundred million 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:42.280 to maintain. 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:45.320 But I mean that's the questions point. 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:45.520 Though. 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:47.800 There are microbes that have been discovered that they think 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:51.120 are thousands of years old that are still catabolically functioning, 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:56.120 and certain jelly fis that's me reproduce and start all 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:56.600 over again. 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.640 I mean they I was going to say, there's a couple. 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.680 You know, there's a difference between holding an organism, you know, 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.920 in the sort of stasis for a long period of time. 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.680 You know, we maintain, we routinely maintain bacteria frozen at 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:16.120 minus eighty when we need them. There are species that 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:21.200 are tractable, that are what we call non aging, by 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:23.400 which I mean, as I said, you know, our chances 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.160 your chance of death goes up exponentially, but if you 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.840 are one of the select number of species, your chance 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.480 of death stay is fixed. And if you've ever had 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:41.080 clam chowder, you've eaten because it's the quay hog, all right, 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.880 and the clams in your bowl of clam chowder were 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:51.640 probably older than you were. And the don't don't, don't. 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.280 Wait a minute, I think I just gave up clam chowder. 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:59.480 Yeah, yeah, the clam showders in the ball in the potential. 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.680 That I have protectially, you know, you know, look, don't 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:04.720 sue if it turns. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.320 But also on the positive side, what were they doing 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.040 that was so exciting that I shouldn't enjoy a nice plans? 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.160 But you know what else, I think the clam's going 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.840 I've been around two hundred years. Really, really, they're going 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.080 to take me out for his What the hell? 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:19.160 Wow? 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:24.600 I was just a cancer and now I'm in Manhattan 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:25.440 or New England, sir. 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:35.360 The very oldest plans are there, so old that Shakespeare 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.120 could have had them very old prayhogs, or so old 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.040 that Shakespeare could have had them in a bowl shoe. 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.200 And this came out in a project or quite a 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.880 few years ago now, which led to a kind of 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.760 car crash interview for me because the guys who were 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.280 doing the work got in touch with me, and in 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.760 a kind of around the houses thing, I suddenly found 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.960 myself on radio being accused of finding the world's oldest 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.320 animal and then killing it, which is kind of hard one, 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.080 you know, you know, it's a bit of a curve 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.840 for when you're jet lagged and you're coming. But to 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:15.920 go back to Jason's original point, that is, the species 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:20.800 that is small enough to work on, you could potentially 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.160 look at extremely long life. One of the interesting things 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.840 that we also tend to do is we like to 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:31.280 look at species that have shorter life spans than ours, 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:33.280 just because we kind of like to get the study 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:39.720 done while we're all still alive, and so's there's particular interest, 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.159 you know. It's one of those things. If anybody is 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.159 amenable to a lifetime's worth of funding, then I'm very happy. 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:48.600 It makes a lot of I suspect not. 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.320 You bring up a good bridge into some of the 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:55.080 ethical questions and moral questions around this research, you know, 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.960 the most basic of which being I see every reason 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:06.080 to be increasing the health of our health as we 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:10.720 live and as we age. But are we are we 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:15.840 potentially doing great harm by trying to increase substantially the 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:20.800 longevity of human life. There I think particularly about, you know, overpopulation. 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.440 I think about the resources that we have on this planet. 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:26.399 If we're going to continue to make babies at the 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:28.840 at the rate that we do, and the average lifespan 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.159 becomes one hundred, one hundred and twenty one hundred and 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.160 twenty five plus years, what are what problems. 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:35.600 Are we creating? Not to mention that my kids still 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:37.840 going to be living, me seventy eight. 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:42.000 Yeah, straight on you now, you won't retire to you 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:48.639 or one hundred and sixty people sixty from your mouth? 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.240 I mean, yeah, I can aside. You're making that there. 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.280 You actually put your finger on a very important point. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.880 Notdly enough. Have you been reading my papers that I've 0:18:58.920 --> 0:18:59.480 just submitted. 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:01.800 I am and by everything that is right? 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:04.919 Okay, O, thank you? What can I say? Are you 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:10.640 doing anything after this? But but effectively, you know this 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.600 isn't This is a really important point about the ethics. 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:19.520 I take this pretty seriously. And one of the things 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:24.520 it's It's not often said, but it's there running through 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:30.840 everything we do as scientists. The unspoken social contract between 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:36.199 the scientific community and the broader public is basically that 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:40.040 we only use our powers for good, okay, so that 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:46.160 we only do things that are of social benefit. And 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:54.960 there is absolutely out there no mass support for greatly 0:19:55.400 --> 0:20:01.080 extended lifespans. It's there, but it's a minority position, a 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:06.560 distinct minority position, because strangely enough, you know, it's always 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:11.800 coupled with the lifespan extension is overpopulation. Right, you know, 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:16.240 when was the last time you had kids? I've done 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.520 it once, and I'm really not. I'm not you know, 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.600 I'm you know, I have a longer life expectancy than 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.320 I would have done in nineteen hundred. I'm not rubbing 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.280 my hands together and saying, hey, bring on, you know, 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.040 bring on the now changing. I can't wait. 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.560 Well, yeah, but who you know. 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:39.359 In the canon the canton is just. 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.919 But I'm I do know older people, I mean, people 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.760 in their seventies that are continuing to have children them. 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.159 Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm I'm not saying it doesn't happen. 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.520 I'm just saying it's not automatic, right, all right. The 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:58.360 increases in the healthy period of the life that we 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:03.919 see in experimental animals in the laboratory into the American 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:10.480 healthcare system saves about seven trillion dollars gross. You're talking 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:16.040 about the US saving money roughly equivalent to about forty 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.240 percent of all the gold out of mind, or enough 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.480 to give everybody on earth clean drinking water for about 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.760 the next three decades. So if we don't go down 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.240 that road, and we don't start treating the ill health 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.680 in later life, we're going to spend more money than 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.880 ever before to keep more people than ever beforemal miserable. 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.520 I kind of have trouble seeing that as a whine. 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.000 The amazing thing is the scientific advances. Just my wife, 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:45.280 I look at my wife. We used to have the 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.439 trumpet ear trumpet way back for hearing impaired, and then 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.440 yet hearing aids, and now she has a cochlear implant. 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.280 That stuff is advancing pretty rapidly as far as technological advances, 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.000 Are we advancing that rapidly in health? 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:00.640 Yeah? 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:05.640 I think, I think, I think that we are at 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:11.360 a point in later life disease roughly equivalent to you know, 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:16.000 it's about nineteen forty, nineteen thirty eight and antibiotics a 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:20.560 just I'm sorry, so pretty and if you think, if 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:22.960 you think about the analogy, it kind of stipped. You know, 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.119 if you had an infected tooth and a time machine, 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:30.919 you sure as hell would dial in some point, you know, 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.080 after about nineteen sixty to. 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:34.200 Get it treated. 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.480 And it does flag up something important which I think 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:44.320 not a lot of politicians and policymakers are alert to 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:48.359 yet though that is changing, which is we are not 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:54.360 the only people talking about this, and quietly but persistent, 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:59.679 they countries are gearing up to move into this space 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.240 that would be and the countries and companies that have 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.240 the production facilities and hold the patents on these new 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:11.880 drugs will have a commanding lead for good or ill 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:14.320 in twenty first century healthcare. 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:17.399 And you just hope that it's affordable, fun to talk about. 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:18.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, But. 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.600 And then the inequality seeps into that, et cetera. And 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:24.600 like you said, I hope good rather than evil. But 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:27.000 in the science community, I noticed people are tending now 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:30.399 to exaggerate findings to tease what's going on because they 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:32.960 want funding. They want to cut through and make noise 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:35.520 like what give me a ferens like you're going to 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:40.040 live forever? Yeah, that kind of client. It's a huge 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:41.719 claim that grabs you. We did a show about it 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:45.240 just now because we saw this futurists who said you could. 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:45.919 Reach that point. 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:50.560 But he's also talking about Kertzweil was talking about not 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:56.200 on medications but engineer. Yeah, you know, he's talking about 0:23:56.200 --> 0:23:58.960 making human beings somewhat less human in. 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:00.800 Order to. 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:02.520 But you also have you have like a David Sinclair 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:06.080 who's doing research who makes claims also and that there 0:24:06.119 --> 0:24:07.639 are people probably on the planet now there are one 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:10.320 hundred and fifty and we just don't know it. And 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:11.919 then you see the guy driving a car at one 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:15.040 hundred and nine, you know they so you see those headlines, 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:18.480 they kind of push out the sense that maybe we're 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:18.880 not seeing. 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:21.560 If my Vivian is ninety two and she's driving a 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:22.359