Are life extensionists mainly driven by a desire to actually live a long time?

How do you interpret the following situation: we have a life extension technologist whose all endeavors is about pushing this issue to its very limits and making things possible but on the other hand this very life extensionist himself is not driven by actually living as long as he can.

It seems that SENS theorist Aubrey de Grey, who is chronologically 45, (BioBarCamp photo by Ricardo) is taking roughly the above position in a recent interview. Aubrey is a good and witty interviewee and of course the interpretation of what he is saying is strongly context dependent so here is the full question and answer:

Question: One hundred years of life can wear you down physically, but it can also wear you down emotionally… perhaps even existentially. For you, is a desire to live long accompanied by a desire to live long in a much-improved human civilization, or is this one satisfactory?

Aubrey de Grey: I’m actually not mainly driven by a desire to live a long time. I accept that when I’m even a hundred years old, let alone older, I may have less enthusiasm for life than I have today. Therefore, what drives me is to put myself (with luck) and others (lots and lots of others) in a position to make that choice, rather than having the choice progressively ripped away from me or them by declining health. Whether the choice to live longer is actually made is not the point for me.

Let’s see 2 possible and extreme interpretations of this answer (neither of them is my own interpretation) and I hope my readers can find fine-tuned arguments in between while thinking a bit about this still rather philosophical topic:

1., Saying that we want the process (a robust healthy lifespan technology) but not necessarily the product (a robust healthy lifespan) of our own business is a disaster

Vadlo, the beta biomedical search engine wants to scale up!

forwarded, nonpersonal mail from Maya Kennard (you might get that email too):

Resource link/Story suggestion for your website:Title: VADLO – Biomedical Search Engine
Description: Vadlo is a search engine for the biology/biomedical scientists, educators, clinicians and reference librarians.
References
Also check the Daily cartoons!

The idea is that we feed them with searches and links and they will grow big enough to give us more and more relevant searches and links. Magic concept: scalability, check the motivation behind the name choice:

Vadlo: (vud-lo) – Vadlo is a large fig tree characterized by aerial roots that eventually become accessory trunks. This allows it to grow horizontally to amazing proportions.

I find the 5 basic search categories amazing and after a short tinkering it can already throw out interesting sources:

From the about page:

Protocols category will let you search for methods, techniques, assays, procedures, reagent recipes, plasmid maps, etc. Online Tools

Make it really simple: animated human prehistory for 23andMe users

New 23andMe website animation on human prehistory made by Ariana Killoran. Ariana created all the Genetics 101 films for 23andMe and the narrator was her pa. With these films the company clearly sets a new standard in popular scientific animations and videos.

Homo Erectus:

Neanderthal:

Who’s first? Happy First Birthday, commercial personal genomics!

What do you think, which company launched the first commercial and comprehensive personal genome service (based on a genome-wide SNP scan) on the market and exactly when?

We have 2 candidates here in the ring deCODE Genetics (founded in 1996, Iceland) and 23andMe (founded in 2006, USA), the Amundsen and Scott of personal genomics. (please don’t take the analogy too seriously)

The when is important from a historical point of view because that day will be considered as the birthday of this infant industry. The birth month and year is November 2007 for sure. That means we are just approaching the 1 year anniversary of the commercial personal genetics/genomics industry and this sounds like a good timing to think about the achievements so far and the future ahead.

But let’s figure out the exact date first and here I think we should consider the day on which a personal genome service was launched for the first time directly available to costumers and when the first public orders were taken.

Using this measure it seems that the historically first personal genome service

Nature Personal Genomics Very Special

The newest Nature issue concentrates on personal genomics and its consequences via many types of articles some of them with free access.

I only read 1 piece so far by Erika Check Hayden, who has the exclusive freedom at Nature to always pick the best stories and write on any of them, but being a heavy 23andMe user I was instantly reminded again on the program Promethease with which I can extend the interpretation of my data with an approximately 2 hour run.

According to two commercial gene-testing services — 23andMe and deCODEme — US Army medic Timothy Richard Gall of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, has a higher-than-average risk of basal cell carcinoma, type 2 diabetes and psoriasis. But much more enlightening than these results, which cost Gall more than $1,400, was a free online program called Promethease that he used to further analyse the data. By offering more in-depth information and interpreting of more of his genetic variants, Promethease “gives a much more realistic view of the usefulness of the information”, Gall says. Start-ups and services such as Promethease are now developing ways to improve the limited value of information provided by personal genomics companies for consumers and scientists alike.

“blogs.nature.com v1 is live” and beyond

A new, completely rewritten, integrated nature.com website blogs.nature.com has been launched by the Natureplex people – informed his Twitter pals Euan Adie:

Also, blogs.nature.com v1 is live! Tequila and donuts all round. Early n’ often release v2 coming on the 18th so get any bug reports in now.

Suggest good science blogs that are not listed on the Nature Blogroll yet.