Who wants to live forever? Scientist sees aging cured

[Slack lines]

If Aubrey de Grey's predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first person to live for 1,000 years could be less than 20 years younger...............

[DavyR]

"And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today."

 

Ah! So this won't apply to the millions living in Third World countries then. They'd do better to secure a reasonable quality of life for people first, before they start trying to make a few "live for ever".

 

But I suppose that's "politics" and not "science".

[grumpybum]

Thats the pension plans of the Torys b******d then?

[chesters1]

its quite easy to cure ageing 40% of african children dying under 5? dont age

[ColinW]

If the tories pension plans come to fruition most 75 year olds will be begging for death, never mind "looking forward" to reaching 150.

Edited July 5, 2011 by ColinW

[Ken L]

Ah! So this won't apply to the millions living in Third World countries then. They'd do better to secure a reasonable quality of life for people first, before they start trying to make a few "live for ever".

 

But I suppose that's "politics" and not "science".

 

chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research

That sounds more like business (The stock market variety) than politics. The boy is clearly looking to flog a few shares.

 

The research is of course essential if we are ever to reach out to the stars and who better to fund it than a bunch of uber rich would be Peter Pans - especially now that they all know that Michael Jackson's Oxygen tent option is a non-starter.

 

At this point, I was going to go off on a right rant about Africa and it's problems but I've decided to delete it before posting. Suffice to say that my view of Africa's problems was was summed up rather succinctly by the "heartrending" story of a woman fleeing from the drought hit areas in the horn of Africa with her SIX CHILDREN. Aid has been pumped into that part of the world in huge quantities for the last 50 years and nothing has changed and it never will as long as we keep giving them food and money and selling them guns and bullets.

Edited July 6, 2011 by Ken L

[DavyR]

Aid has been pumped into that part of the world in huge quantities for the last 50 years and nothing has changed and it never will as long as we keep giving them food and money and selling them guns and bullets.

 

What I can't understand is why the Government isn't a bit more transparent about the point of the Overseas Aid budget. I doubt anyone believes it exists for humanitarian reasons. It's there to indirectly "promote British interests", but how? Just to enable corrupt governments to continue to buy from UK arms dealers?

 

The Taxpayers' Alliance and similar pressure groups are understandably peeved about increases in Overseas Aid at the same time as cuts are being made in domestic budgets. The real reasons are probably "classified", but even a pointer to what it's really all for might make taxpayers more accepting.

 

And I see from this morning's news that certain aid payments (e.g. those going towards education) are going to be "by results" in the future. What makes them think this approach will work in countries riddled with corruption when it patently hasn't worked in the UK? With human nature being what it is, and the same the whole world over, don't they realise the "results" are going to be achieved by whatever means necessary - which are unlikely to be the "desirable" ones?