Life in the year 2100
12-16-2011, 08:07 AM
#1
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Life in the year 2100
Pretty cool article, but I dont see any of it really happening other than maybe artificial intelligence...
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/16/opinio...html?hpt=hp_c2
This was my favorite:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/16/opinio...html?hpt=hp_c2
This was my favorite:
Stop the aging process
For millennia, kings and queens have sought the Fountain of Youth without success. We still don't have it, but biotechnology may eventually allow us to stop and maybe reverse the aging process.
After centuries of confusion, we now know what aging is: the build-up of errors, at the molecular, genetic, and cellular level. But it is possible to create error-correcting mechanisms which might reverse this process.
At present, for example, we can double the life span of most organisms, from yeast cells, to spiders and insects, rats and mice, rabbits, dogs and cats, and now primates.
Eventually, a combination of several therapies (e.g. gene therapy, caloric restriction, telomerase, sirtuins, etc.) may allow us to unlock the aging process.
Already, about 60 genes have been isolated where aging seems to be concentrated. In the future, when everyone has their personal genome on a disk, we will use computers to scan millions of genomes of young people, then the genomes of the elderly, and then simply subtract.
In this way, we will isolate the genes involved in aging. (For example, we are 98.5% genetically identical to a chimpanzee. But we live twice as long. So, among a handful of genes are the ones which have doubled our life span.)
Our grandchildren may have the option of reaching the age of 30, and then stopping at that age for many decades to come.
For millennia, kings and queens have sought the Fountain of Youth without success. We still don't have it, but biotechnology may eventually allow us to stop and maybe reverse the aging process.
After centuries of confusion, we now know what aging is: the build-up of errors, at the molecular, genetic, and cellular level. But it is possible to create error-correcting mechanisms which might reverse this process.
At present, for example, we can double the life span of most organisms, from yeast cells, to spiders and insects, rats and mice, rabbits, dogs and cats, and now primates.
Eventually, a combination of several therapies (e.g. gene therapy, caloric restriction, telomerase, sirtuins, etc.) may allow us to unlock the aging process.
Already, about 60 genes have been isolated where aging seems to be concentrated. In the future, when everyone has their personal genome on a disk, we will use computers to scan millions of genomes of young people, then the genomes of the elderly, and then simply subtract.
In this way, we will isolate the genes involved in aging. (For example, we are 98.5% genetically identical to a chimpanzee. But we live twice as long. So, among a handful of genes are the ones which have doubled our life span.)
Our grandchildren may have the option of reaching the age of 30, and then stopping at that age for many decades to come.
