WEBVTT - 999 Birthday Candles 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.920 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.200 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.520 you know, humans have always been pretty interested in the 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:26.800 idea of living longer, living forever, even it's uh, it's 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.200 pretty much the thing we're most into. Oh yeah, the 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.760 fountain of youth, right, that that trophy that we continue 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.560 to pursue. Yeah. I I always think back to the 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:39.840 line and Blade Runner with Rudgar Howard's character Roy Batty. Yeah, 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.360 Roy Batty, where he says I want more life father, Yes, yeah, 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.080 and sometimes he says other things to slightly different things 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:47.839 depending on the cut. But that's the director's the most 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.400 recent director's cut, and I think that's the final word 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:52.720 on the matter. It's a little creepy too, right, yeah, 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:54.600 because I think then you like poke somebody's eyes out 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.080 or something. Yeah, and then there's a couple of backflips. Yeah, 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:00.640 because he's in shape. He only lived to be like three. 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:04.440 That was the thing. The uh, the fake people and 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.040 that the replicants, um, they had very short lifespans and 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:09.520 they were kind of pissed about it. They only lived 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:11.840 to be three years old, even though they were they 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.840 were full grown, you know, sexy adults, but they were 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:17.720 they were only three years old when they died, that's right. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:19.720 And if they all wore makeup or was it just 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.200 Darryll Hannah who uh, Darrell Hannah were makeup? I think 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.759 Rugger Howard just went around shirtless and whip that's right. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:27.959 And it was this blazing blue eyes. That's what I'm 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.400 thinking about the makeup. Well, I guess that if they 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.680 were if replicants were real, and and and if Blade 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.559 and I actually happened and they found about this guy, 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.280 this dude named Aubrey de Gray, Yeah, this is the 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.760 guy they would be running down. Because the whole sci 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:45.480 fi thing of like, oh, I'm not gonna live very long. 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:46.800 I need to fix it. I mean, that's just an 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.600 amplification of the very real life scenario that everybody's in, 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.440 except I mean some people are more denial. They're just 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:53.760 kind of like, oh, I guess I'm gonna get old 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:55.120 and die and you know, there's nothing I can do 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.120 about it. And some would arguable that's the healthy approach 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.840 that you're you know, you're but but not but no, 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.440 not Aubrey to Gray right like he's he's this biogerontologist, 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.120 self taught by the way, but at the same time 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.480 is just has pulled the rug out from under the 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.919 whole field of gerontology, and um, he's sitting there saying, 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.280 you know what, it's it's not that we can't live 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:20.919 much longer. It's just that we are we are sitting 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.880 there just sort of giving up, when in fact, there 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.959 there are things that we can pursue and do today, 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.600 and that it's very possible that the first person to 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.680 live to one thousand years old has been born is 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:36.720 in and it could be you or I or both 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.760 of us. Are all of us depending on what sort 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.840 of research and what sort of breakthrough has happened. It's 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:45.840 not gonna be me. I'm gonna cut it off around 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.360 five hundred years, you know, because I think five that's 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:51.000 a good that's a good cut off point. After that 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:52.760 it gets kind of tacky. I mean, how bad of 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.440 a driver am I going to be by five? Well? 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:57.720 I mean according to him though that you there's good. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.639 You know, I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but there 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:05.119 are all sorts of cellular rejuvenations happening that are kind 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.760 of keeping you at this baseline level, always feeling like 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.200 you're thirty years old. Well, that's his thing. His his 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.280 thing is like it's not just a let's cling to 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.720 life till the very limits of our of our ability, 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:17.840 because that's that's the really sad and that's one of 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:19.560 the things that that I think that theres a lot 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.600 of people from thinking about, um, you know, life extending research, 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.079 because we have that picture in our mind of somebody 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.720 wasting away um often with a you know, in an 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.320 enfeebled mind, if not in sometimes it seems like it's 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.079 it's either one or the other. Half the time, it's 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.840 like either the mind goes or the body goes, and 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.480 I guess sometimes both go and then very rare instances 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.880 both seem to hang on a little while. But he's 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:43.720 saying it doesn't have to be like that. We can 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.080 It's not just prolonging life, but but making the good 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.320 part last longer. It's not just keeping the clunk or 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.560 car going, you know, and just to the point we're 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.360 just pushing it along the road, but actually maintaining it, 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.720 replacing the parts that need replacing, uh doing you know, 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.360 giving at the service it requires to keep that that 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:06.040 car nice and road worthy for for you know, a 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.440 long time. That's interesting and one interview he actually uses 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.360 that same analogy and it says, Yeah, that's why do 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:13.560 you think we have like these cool antique cars that 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.800 are in mint condition because we continue to rejuvenate them 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:22.440 at every pass. And it's and basically that aging is 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.159 an engineering problem. Yeah, and he can fix it. And 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.040 I totally buy into this guy, and part of it 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.400 maybe his awesome beard. Will you describe this man's beard. 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:36.120 The beard is very, very long, it's pointy. Um, it's 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.160 kind of got a ginger colored brownish hue to it. Um. 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:44.280 It speaks to me literally, it says hello, Julie, and 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.400 it has it has actually caused me to form a 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.720 crush on this man. I know it sounds weird, but 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:51.840 besides the fact that he's brilliant, he's doing all these 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.000 incredible things. Yes, he looks like a tall, linky gnome. Yeah, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.440 people like Gandalf and Alan Moore look at this guy 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.760 and they're like, man, and that has got a cool beer. Yeah, 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.600 just bears mentioning, that's all. Yeah, And and also it's 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.640 easy to reconnife. You see a YouTube clip with a 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:09.839 guy with an epic beer talking about living to be 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.320 a thousand years old. It's this guy. There's not another. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.840 It's not a crazy homeless guy. It's most likely all 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.600 breated de gray. So so yeah, this is it's it's 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.159 a very cool Argumentum. I I think I've spoken before 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.920 in the podcast about when we think about death, there 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.200 are sort of like two camps. There's like in one 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.120 of our a lot of our problems with death and 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:34.160 our belief systems about death correspond with this idea that 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.719 death isn't something that our body does, but something that 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.880 happens to our body. And uh, and he's just he's 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.120 basically saying, yeah, this is something our body does, but 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.720 it happens in seven ways, and these are seven battles 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.440 that we can win. All right, all right, this is 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:56.719 like the Scott Pilgrim versus the world things seven evil boyfriends. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.440 it's like that he's vanquishing each one. But um, we 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.960 should probably talk a little bit more about, um, some 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.039 of the nuts and bolts stuff that we know, like 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.520 the Hayflick limits. Oh yes, the Hayflick limit is a 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.360 big one. Um. And this involves that this gets a 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.600 little technical. Will bear with me. This involves something called 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.479 yeah yeah, and there'll be more beerd jokes later, but 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:25.599 it involves telomeres, in and telomerase. Okay, let's hit telomeres first. 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:31.159 All right. These were discovered in Night by geneticist Hermann J. Mueller. 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.520 Telomeres is Greek for in part and basically what you 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.480 need to think about our shoelaces. Okay, Because these are 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:44.240 telomeres are essentially protective caps composed of short DNA sequences 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.760 on the tips of chromosomes. All right. The chromosomes they protect, 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:52.040 in turn, contain the DNA that determines our entire biological profile, 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:56.400 everything about you. Um. Geneticist Elizabeth Blackburn compared them to 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:58.360 the little caps on the ends of our shoelaces. That's 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.200 where I get this fantastic analogy. I can't take full 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.200 credit for it, but anyway, Without them, the laces begin 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.760 to unravel. So you see the problem. The unraveling of 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.920 the laces is aging. Each time the cell divides, the 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.640 telomeres become shorter. Okay, so it's kind of like each 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.320 time you wash your shoes in the water, it breaks 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.200 down the odal plastic capitittle Okay, if the telomeres grow 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:22.360 too short, they reach the hay flick clement. All right, 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.280 this is the point at which they can no longer 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:28.440 protect the chromosomes from damage. So in this you can 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.880 think of them and you know, less like shoe laces 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.800 and more like a lit candle. So even now, your 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.400 telomeres are burning down, and they're getting shorter with each division, 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.480 and uh, you know, reaching the point of of guttering out. 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.920 And some people have are have longer telomeres than others. 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:48.120 The longer you have, the longer um life you have. Yeah. Yeah, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:49.720 And when I was getting your article on how to 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.080 telomeres work, I noted that you had a photo of 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:58.800 a woman I think ditavanties. Yeah, okay, and she's got 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:00.880 you know, it's a picture of a mole. And I 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.360 guess that there's a connection between people who have moles 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.120 in the length of their telomeres. Right. It took me 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:08.800 a long time to find a close up of her 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:14.120 face on Getty Images, but I wonder why. Yeah, but yeah, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:15.840 I mean that's interesting. Right, So if you have a mole, 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.960 then you might say to yourself, hey, I won the 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.800 the telomere jackpot. Here might are pretty long, Yeah, if 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:23.160 you have a lot of molds, all the better. That 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.679 was from a two thousand not two thousand seven. I'm sorry, 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.360 dermatology study conducted by King's College, London, And yeah, I 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.480 said people with more moles often have longer deal mirrors. Yeah, 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:34.800 and then you've got that tim raise, which is the 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:40.160 enzyme that helps, yeah, rebuild telomerase to enumerase. I only 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.319 know that because I had to look at some YouTube 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.400 videos right before we came in here to get appreciation. 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.280 That's good. That's because I was just going to go 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.280 off with like telomerase for something like elomerase. But that 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.000 is something you know. That enzyme is very active when 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:57.800 we're young, obviously, and helps us um rebuild damage to 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.680 ourselves or rebuild ourselves, so on and so forth. But 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.839 as we get older, it decreases, and the only time 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.040 that we see an uptick and its production is when 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.960 there are cancerous cells right right now. To tilomerase again, 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:15.920 it it basically repairs and lengthens the telomeres. Yes, So 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.959 that that's why why it's important. But but like you're 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.040 about to say, the problem is it's not just a hey, 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.480 let's pump ourselves full of tilomeraise and and read the benefits, 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.920 because too much tilomeraise is not a good thing, right, 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.640 And we think that it happens in cancer cells because 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.000 it's sort of an ingrained UM algorithm that goes, oh, hey, 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:34.880 we're being attacked. We need to repair these cells. But 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.400 in fact you probably shouldn't prear these cells because these 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.559 are the these are the cancer as cells, and these 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.120 are the ones that are eating your body up essentially um. 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.360 And so that's why that's one of the reasons why 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.800 cancer cells are so aggressive, is because you've got the 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.560 two mares going on there. But it's it's all sorts 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:56.760 of interesting implications with telomerase, this enzyme. There's the possibility 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.120 that we could use them in a way that we 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.400 wouldn't be destroying ourselves and we might be rejuvenating ourselves 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.679 from stem cells. So yeah, there go yeah. And this 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.000 is part and parcel of Aubrey de Gray's um thinking Yeah, 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:18.360 which we will talk about more. This presentation is brought 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:25.800 to you by Intel sponsors of Tomorrow and in fact, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.720 in Nature magazine, Harvard Medical School published the results of 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.760 their study in which they treated my suffering from age 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.960 related to degeneration and with Tela Maris, and they found 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.160 that the damage didn't just go away, but the mice 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.240 actually repair their cells to an earlier, healthier and younger state. 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.679 So there's there's possibilities here. We shouldn't, you know, wholesale 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:48.680 poopo it right now, we just don't quite understand how 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:51.560 it could work for us. Yeah, but let's talk about 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.720 the bearded one. Oh yes, yes, his his seven the 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.800 seven battles, the sevel seven fronts in the War to 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.200 defeat aging. That's right, Um, I guess we can just 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.280 blow through these. Uh, this guy can talk a lot 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.160 about them. So it's you know, each each one is 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.640 is a very deep issue and if we really wanted to, 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:11.720 we could probably do a podcast on each of these. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.320 Oh yeah, and and talk about the different examples, because 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.440 you could go on and on. But just just for 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:18.760 brevity's sake, we'll just kind of go for them, talk 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:20.679 about them. Let's blow through them. Here we go, all right? 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:25.040 So number one, cells that die off aren't naturally replaced 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.840 in the heart and brain. Okay, so you it's it's 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.560 again kind of wear and tear. Things are are are 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.360 crapping out on you and they're not getting fixed, all right. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.520 His fix is, uh, you have stem cell replacements. Yes, okay, 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:44.120 And again that's simple, that's a simplification. It's a very 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.000 in depth of field of study. But that's the basic 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.880 idea of the fix, all right. Number two, proliferation of 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.280 unwanted cells, such as fat cells that replace muscle like 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.400 this kind of thing leads to diabetes. His fix trick 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:00.439 them into destroying themselves through suicide gene therapy, which sounds 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:05.720 pretty awesome. Number three. Yeah, Number three, formation of links 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:09.920 between certain proteins and the lack of elasticity in certain 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.680 tissues like artery walls that cause high blood pressure. The 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:18.360 fix drugs that break these bonds. Okay. Number four cellilar 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.040 garbage inside the cell, like build up of ane as 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.360 between the brain. Uh, in the brain that causes Alzheimer's right. 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.680 His fix engineer genes and enzymes to digest the junk. Um. 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.240 This would be like you know, enzyme injections, and he 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.559 thinks that, interestingly enough, we might find the bacteria in graveyards, 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:39.760 which has a nice creepy twist on this. Like I said, 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.200 there's a whole podcast um. Then cellular garbage outside the 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.760 cell um. The fix is the same enzymes and injection, 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.320 but an example of of how celar garbage outside the 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.240 cell leads to aging and death. This is hardening of 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:59.040 arteries and heart disease. Number six aging damages mitochondria that 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.880 produced energy for cellular activity. His fix swap around the 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.520 mitochondrial DNA through gene therapy to protect it. And then 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.960 finally the big one number seven cancer runaway cell divisions. 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:16.560 And his fix for this is awesome, um because they 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.480 basically the idea came to him while he was in 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.559 an Italian bar and he was on his second beer. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.600 And this is why this is I really love this 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.640 is because there's a there's a British sketch comedy show 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.400 called That Mitchell and web Look and they have this 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.240 one sketch about how about this like secret group kind 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.360 of an illuminated group to control of the world and 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:40.440 run everything. And they're based along the principle that, um, 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.679 you should never finish your second drink, like this is 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:45.600 an alcoholic drink things, so you know, you know, if 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:47.600 you're not drinking age, you you don't know exactly what 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:49.640 I'm talking about, and nor should you tell appropriate drinking 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.000 rate age if you so choose but the argument in 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.240 the sketch was that by the middle of that second drink, 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.760 everything is possible. You have this this feeling of optimism 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.199 that you can conquer anything, and you just you know, 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.120 just use jazz, like throw a problem at me, death, cancer, 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:06.920 I got it, I'll figure it out. But if you 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:11.160 finish that second drink, then any number of catastrophes could happen. 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.400 So their whole thing is just never finished the second drink. 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:16.559 So I love the idea that the bearded one came 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.200 up with this idea halfway through that second beer. Um. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.840 And the idea is something called wilt or whole body 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.360 interdiction of lengthening telomeres. And he's talking about destroying the 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:32.200 replicating abilities of all potentially dangerous cells before they can 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.720 become cancerous and replace and basically and you would also 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.240 like pump in replacement stem cells every decade and so 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:43.440 it's sort of like heading them off with the past. Yeah, okay, UM, 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.200 I don't know this is this is so fascinating because 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.320 what's what is weird about this is that this guy 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.160 didn't set out to be a biogerontologist, right, like I 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.680 believe that he's got a degree in computer sciences, and 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.200 he's quite esteemed, although a bit of a lightning rod, 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.200 and not just because of his of his beard, but 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.840 because of what he's proposing. But he's done so much 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.480 research and he has published so much on this that 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.640 he really is making inroads in terms of logistics. And 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.160 he's basically saying, I can't do this tomorrow, but I 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:21.480 think within ten years we're within reach of of extending life. 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:26.280 Find like, if we can really sink some money into 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.400 looking at the best way to apply this to humans. Um. 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:32.800 And again, he's done a ton of work with rats 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:34.600 and so on and so forth. If only there were 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.320 some old people with a lot of money concerned about dying. 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:39.920 I don't know. I'm not sure the research is going 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.840 to come together on this one, but we'll see. Uh yeah, 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.440 I know where could he find those people? And how 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.680 could he transmit his message? I don't know to these people? Uh, 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:51.960 but I mean people really are interested in though. But 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.880 in his Ted dot com bio because he had does 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.600 this great Ted talk? Uh? They say. In July two, 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.320 the m I T. Technology Review challenge scientists to disprove 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:07.680 degrees claims, offering a twenty thousand dollar prize, half of 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.920 which was money put up by Degrades Foundation, which is 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:15.800 called appropriately enough Methuselah Foundation. Of course, is one of 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.320 the Biblical characters that lived to an advanced stage. I 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.720 think he, along with Noah and Adam supposedly lived to 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:28.680 be nine They are going um. But anyway, they put 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:34.360 up this challenge basically any molecular biologist who could demonstrate 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:38.240 that his sins which is the abbreviation for what he's doing, 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.680 is so wrong that is unworthy of learned debate, and 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.200 the challenge remains open. So and there are a lot 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.840 of people who are looking at this and it's you know, 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.200 it's within his field and outside of his field. And 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.720 what I think is interesting is that Raymond kurts Wheel, 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:57.760 who I don't know if we could call him the 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:01.520 father of the singularity, you know that's appropriate, but certainly 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.399 someone who has been talking about the singularity um. And 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.159 this is again for anybody just joining this, uh and 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:09.840 not for those of you who are sick of hearing 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.359 about singularity. Is that the idea that computers continue to 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.760 advance and advance, and they're advancing at such a rate 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.800 that they will eventually surpass humans and then the singularity 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:23.359 will occur where they you know, they nose ahead in 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.040 the race. Yeah, and he says, uh, this isn't an 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.000 interview with Ram Kurts. Well, he says, we'll get to 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.080 a point in my view, it's only about fifteen years 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.760 away where every year that goes by, we're adding more 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.960 than a year to your remaining life expectancy. So that's 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.480 a tipping point. And he points directly to degray Um 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:42.840 and then to kind of back that up, he said, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.280 he likes to point out that, you know, look look 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.199 at technology, and we've talked about more slaw before and 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.440 so on and so forth, and he's sort of applying 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.880 this analogy to um the medical field. But he's saying, like, 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.720 you know, look at your average cell phone. It's about 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.680 a million the size of the millions of the price 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.639 of an of a thousand times more powerful than the 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.920 computer he had an m I T forty years ago. 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.160 So his point is that technology is speeding up. These 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:13.000 things are happening. Um, the human genome, you know, nobody 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.359 thought that would ever get mapped, got mapped two years 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.800 earlier than it was supposed to. Uh, we're moving toward this, 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.440 you know, especially in churs Wheel's opinion, at this point 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.879 where technology and science and medicine are converging to create 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.240 this this circumstance where we possibly could extend our life 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.560 in a meaningful way, not as you have pointed out, 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.919 just sort of crawling toward death at you know, age nine, 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.920 but feeling actually robust, yeah, or you know, are also 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.280 these sort of sci fi visions too, of like just 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.880 being a feeble thing locked away in a pod somewhere 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.159 on life support. Like nobody wants that. I mean, you 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.239 want the state you want to You don't want some 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.640 weird sci fi state of living death. And and certainly 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:59.000 that's that's the the dystopian vision of what the prolonged 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:00.880 life might be like. But the the side is yeah, 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.000 being you know, being in your sixties, being in your 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.760 seventies and still being able to body you know, yeah, yeah, 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.879 I mean so, I mean there's some interesting information about that. UM. 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.520 And he even feels like he can bear this out 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:19.800 again within ten years, particularly through his his mouse rejuvenation 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.280 is which what he calls it UM and I think 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.800 that's interesting too. He has in his ted talk this 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.760 graph of how all of these different aspects work together. 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:35.600 To create what he calls longevity escape velocity just you know, yeah, 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:37.600 because it's it's kind of like these seven factors are 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.240 like different, like seven different. Gravity is holding us to 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:45.520 the to the sphere of mortality. We can free ourselves 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.480 with those bonds than you know, the sky's the limit, 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.600 right Yeah. And uh another interview, this I believe, was 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.000 with The Guardian, uh De Grace said there was a 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.680 question to him and says, you've talked about enriching people's lives, 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.200 but isn't it the very fact of death that gives 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.000 our lives me? And he says, that's nonsense. The fact 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:04.800 is people don't want to get sick. I'm just a 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.119 practical guy. I don't want to get sick, and I 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:08.840 don't want you to get sick. And that's what this 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.160 is all about. I don't work on longevity. I work 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.440 on keeping people healthy. The only difference between my work 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:16.879 and the work of the whole medical profession is that 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.280 I think we're in striking distance of keeping people so 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.199 healthy that it at age ninety, the will carry on 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:24.959 waking up in the same physical state as they were 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.439 at the age of thirty, and the probability of not 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.679 waking up one morning will be no higher than it 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:31.640 was at the age of thirty. So this is where 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.040 we kind of begin to float off into the philosophical 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:39.439 deep end of the pool. Right the implications, Yeah, because 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:45.240 death is is an insensial, essential aspect of human life. 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:49.480 It's it's the big reality that everybody faces, no matter 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:50.680 what you do in your life. This is one of 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:52.440 the things you're definitely going to get around to doing. 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.600 Um and uh. And it it defines so much of 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:58.600 who we are. But then, but then how much of 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.120 it does it really define? That you into two questions 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.920 of again, is it does death inspire us as does 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:05.879 the does it motivate us the idea that we're not 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:07.840 going to be here forever and we only have you know, 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:10.080 a finite amount of time to do these things on 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.520 the on this planet, or you know, is it kind 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.400 of a false view. I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting. 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.440 And there was a question from an audience member and 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.880 Degray's Ted talk and the guy was basically saying, well, 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.639 aren't we sort of evolved to die? And his comment 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.280