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That is largely fairly cool. Beats the choice, as they are saying. However one decidedly uncool factor about being nearly 50 is that my “unhealthy” LDL ldl cholesterol is just too excessive. The apparent answer right here is to enhance my weight loss program and get extra train. But when that have been really easy, nobody would have excessive ldl cholesterol, proper? An alternative choice could be to go on statins—use remedy to deliver it down. A lot of folks do that, however it’s a remedy, not a treatment, and the unwanted effects could be intense.
Or, simply perhaps, I may have my genes edited utilizing CRISPR, as a affected person in New Zealand not too long ago did, to completely cut back my LDL. Provided that coronary heart illness is a number one reason behind demise, that might meaningfully extend my life. There’s nonetheless a lot to be taught concerning the effectiveness of such a remedy, however the mere prospect is fairly superb.
The issues we will do to change our our bodies right this moment would have gave the impression of science fiction just some years in the past. Scratch that—a few of them nonetheless sound like science fiction. Getting old and demise have lengthy been our inevitable fates, constants of life that start with beginning. However what if getting old isn’t inevitable? What if we may sluggish and even reverse the method? This can be much less far-fetched than you think about.
A flotilla of billionaires and Silicon Valley elites, and even the Saudi royal household, have poured staggering quantities of cash into this query, funding startups and analysis that search to increase our time on Earth. Antonio Regalado has the story of the search for medical rejuvenation: researchers need to reprogram our cells to make them younger once more, letting us lead longer, more healthy lives.
Or much more intriguing: What if we may cheat demise and stay endlessly? As a result of we will. Or no less than our digital replicas can, as Charlotte Jee discovered when she educated an AI to create simulacra of her mother and father. The know-how she explored is one among a number of meant to let the dwelling commune with the lifeless, on this case through Amazon Alexa.
However even when we will stay endlessly in a wise speaker, in the meanwhile there’s nonetheless no manner round demise. In fact, there are lots of people engaged on that. Maybe you may need to have your corpse preserved at −196 °C within the hopes of being introduced again to life once more sooner or later. The sector of cryonics remains to be trucking alongside, even whether it is “a hopeless aspiration that reveals an appalling ignorance of biology,” as one scientist places it.
For many who have accepted their destiny however need their demise to assist others stay longer, there’s all the time the potential for donating one’s physique to science. Whereas that’s one thing you’ve absolutely heard of, it’s nothing like what you’ve most likely imagined. Abby Ohlheiser pulls again the curtain to disclose how this intimate course of actually works.
I hope this problem serves up lots for you to consider. As all the time, I’d love to listen to your ideas. You may attain me at mat.honan@technologyreview.com.
See you on the opposite facet,
Mat
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