Currently viewing the tag: "Anti-Aging"
Buzzfeed’s “Top 23 Ways You’ll Die” highlights a curious issue around mortality. The top three causes of death – heart disease, cancer and stroke – are failing equipment while the next couple – auto accidents, self-inflicted harm, accidental poisoning – are social and mental.
I don’t remember the exact numbers, but even if we [...]
In an interview with the NYT, Sean Carroll noted that entropy and aging are related. Jerry Coyne complicates that equation:
There are several theories of ageing. The evolutionary “pleiotropy” theory says that it pays organisms to reproduce earlier rather than later, so genes that enhance early reproduction even if they cause later [...]
Annalee Newitz has a new piece up on io9 critiquing the anti-aging/immortality argument. Is brief, incisive, and clear: take 3 minutes and read the whole thing.
Her four points, summarized:
1. We will no longer be human.
2. Whatever body you’re in, there you are.
3. Our augmented bodies and minds will be hackable.
[...]
Transhumanists like to talk about immortality, anti-aging, and life-extension. These three ideas are often used interchangeably and for most debates, such as over issues of Malthusian catastrophes or existential boredom, they apply. But what if we only conquered the middle of the three; what if we could only slow the aging process, but not add [...]
If you’re familiar with the life-extension debate, this is a wonderful refresher, if you’re new to the debate, this is a fantastic summary:
When I was in undergrad, a professor asked our whole class a strange question. The question was strange because it seemed totally out of context, but I think he had a point, so I present it here as a worthy thought experiment.
“Lets say that I have in my hand, right now, a pill,” he [...]
Aubrey de Grey, Robert Butler, and Leonard Guarente recently sat down to discuss anti-aging medicine. One of the most common critiques of anti-aging – one I didn’t address in my FAQ – is one of existential crisis. Let’s say that I knew that medicine had advanced to a point where I could reasonably [...]
Ron Bailey combines two new papers, one from John Davis and the other from IEET fellow Russell Blackford, into a serious argument in favor of anti-aging tech. My favorite paragraph is the summary of how Blackford dismantles Singer:
But imposing population control measures should be morally suspect to someone who advocates maximizing [...]
Researchers are claiming they have pinned down a gene with influence on telomere length and shortening rate:
The scientists have discovered that a variant of the TERC gene determines not only how long the telomeres are when someone is born but also how quickly they shorten.
Prof [Nilesh] Samani, who reported his findings in [...]
About
Pop Bioethics, written by Kyle Munkittrick, is an effort to study the ethics of the continuing evolution of the human species via the lens of pop culture and be somewhat entertaining in the process.
Kyle's writing can also be found at Discover's The Crux, Slate's Future Tense, and at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. For questions or comments: comments [at] popbioethics [dot] com
All opinions, ideas, and words either explicit or implicit found within this website are my own and represent no other person, organization, or group.Categories
