What change would you make if society tolerated only 1 change at a time?

Nikola Tesla (portrayed by David Bowie) says in The Prestige: “Society tolerates only one change at a time”. If this was true what only change (difference) would you make? The change could be technological, scientific, economical, political, any kind…a change that would make room for all the other changes.

Thesis live: 1.1 Turnover or Every cell has a lifespan

In the live thesis building blogxperiment I edit (digest, compile, write, rewrite, delete) my ongoing doctoral thesis in blog posts and put the parts together on thesis live. The title: The physiologic role of stem cells in tissues with different regenerative potential. 1.1 Stem cells and regenerative medicine: basic concepts /turnover: cellular turnover/ The concept…

The domesticated biotech future according to Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson, old school physics hero conceptualized his rather philosophical thoughts on future biotechnology in a visionary essay in The New York Review of Books, Volume 54, Number 12 · July 19, 2007. What is surprising to me that according to Dyson “our biotech future” is centered around genetic engineering only, and there is not…

Even economists have ideas on the hows of life extension…

Are we really in the age of Regenerative Medicine 2.0? A comparison by Chris Mason

In the age of compelling technology analogies and nomenclatures it was unavoidable that somebody at last identifies enough differences in the history of industrial regenerative medicine to tell Regenerative Medicine 1.0 from 2.0. The man behind is Chris Mason, Group Leader of Stem Cell + Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing Unit, University College London and cofounder and…

An argument supporting systemic regenerative medicine as a life extension tool

The incentive of this argument is a comment on a post over at fellow life extension blog Fight Aging! titled You Can’t Row the Whole Distance With Oars Made of Stem Cells. 1. Currently the biggest grants in life sciences are in regenerative medicine and stem cell biology. 2. The rate of progress is very…

The birth of the stem cell niche concept: Schofield, 1978

In David Scadden‘s elegant review on The stem-cell niche as an entity of action I found the historically first article in which the concept of the stem cell niche was proposed: “The concept of a niche as a specialized microenvironment housing stem cells was first proposed by Schofield almost 30 years ago in reference to…

Best paper on stem cells and ageing by Thomas Rando: Figure 1

One of the promo material of last December Cambridge Embryonic Stem Cell Symposium was the Nature Insight: Stem Cells which was a supplement in Nature Vol. 441, No. 7097 pp1059-1102 from June , 2006. In it I found the best, brilliantly argumented and conceptualized, data-rich paper of Thomas Rando from Stanford University on Stem cells,…

The Scientist on JoVE: Video makes the new science stars?

Thoughtful short piece on the new science video experiment site JoVE in The Scientist blog by Brendan Maher: “Videos like this could cut down troubleshooting time considerably. Moreover, there’s a great opportunity to create some new science stars. Who, after all, doesn’t have a running commentary going through their head as they run through the…

Moderate life extension: yes, maximum: no, interview with Huber Warner

Huber R. Warner is a biochemist by profession and he initiated and participated in the development of many research areas including: cellular senescence, oxidative stress, apoptosis, functional genomics, the intervention testing program, and premature aging models. He currently serves on the editorial board of Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, is the editor of the Journal…

Maximum Life’s James Clement: what can a lawyer do for life extension?

James Clement is an attorney and serial entrepreneur. He is the Chief Operating Officer of Maximum Life Foundation which supports aging and life extension research with a mature and secure VC fund strategy (next blogterviewee, David Kekich, C.E.O. of MaxLife). 1. What is the story of your life extension commitment? I have been interested in…

Life extension interviews: Nick Bostrom and the philosopher’s point of view

Nick Bostrom is an analytic philosopher by profession in Oxford, but he has a strong background in science too. He is also the co-founder and current chair of the World Transhumanist Association. 1. What is the story of your life extension commitment? I did not think much about the topic until I learned about various…

Commentary on mitochondrial transfer in recent Rejuvenation Research

I published a commentary paper on mitochondrial transfer experiments (PNAS) in recent Rejuvenation Research, impact factor 8.571. Rejuv. Res. is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal and the leading forum publishing solid science to expedite a real cure for aging. Here is the public abstract:

2 more bloggers’ answers: Anne Corwin and Phil Bowermaster

The spectrum of the life extension blogterviewees is broad: scholars, activists, IT people, VC folks, … and is broadening further. Here are 2 more activists/bloggers who put their answers to their blog: Anne Corwin and the aphoristically dense Phil Bowermaster. Thanks for answering. I ‘d like to emphasize that I modified questions 4-5, and introduced…

Blogterview with Aubrey de Grey: life extension stories

Aubrey de Grey is the man, who first made serious, scientifically conceptualized life extension speech acceptable within scholarly circles through good timing, well-done strategy and with a little bit of luck. The rest is … (I’ve slightly modified the original question 4 and separated questions concerning the probable technologies of moderate and maximum life extension.)…

Sand Hill Road Venture Capitalist about life extension as business

There was a very interesting comment dialogue last week apropos of Aubrey de Grey‘s TED talk, and the host was Baris Karadokan’s blog called From Istanbul to Sand Hill Road subtitled High-tech, venture capital, creativity and innovation. Here are some details. Link storytelling idea source

The bioinformatics bet: what can IT folks do for life extension?

Briefly: A lot. As you might have noticed, for me as biotechnologist/life extensionist, the most important reference group is the group of IT people, because of the engineering approach, software-hardware tools, intuition concerning technology and funds. After Reason and Chris, our next answerer is Jim Craig, who published his answers here as a comment first…

Blogterview with Ouroboros’ Chris Patil, II.: the technology of life extension

Here is Chris’ answer to question 4, for me it was the most important because of its critical edge. Question 2 was about moderate or maximum life extension commitment and the question below is not restricted to maximum LE and unlimited lifespan but includes modest trials too. 4. What is the most probable technological draft…

Blogterview with Fight Aging!’s Reason: answers to life extension questions

Our first answerer to the 6 questions is Reason, who is the main driving force of the biggest and most established life extension site, Fight Aging! (Technorati Rank) and The Longevity Meme, continuously from 2001. 1. What is the story of your life extension commitment? I don’t like the idea of decaying, suffering and dying.…

5 simple questions to life extension supporters, 1 plus for bloggers

My plan is to make short interviews using the same 6 questions with today’s life extension supporters/bloggers around the blogosphere. The first answerer will be Reason, the engine behind Fight Aging! and Longevity Meme. Here are the questions: 1. What is the story of your life extension commitment? 2. Is it a commitment for moderate…

Rational Longevity: life extension as a project for critical thinkers

Anne Corwin, technological progressive from California wrote a nice philosophical essay, called What Is Meant By “Rational Longevity”, in which she delineates the territory of the new buzzword referring to clear critical principles:

First full-time biotech employee at Google BioLabs

Hello everybody, let me introduce myself: I am the first full-time biotechnologist at Google Inc. (well, not really). My job at Google is fascinating: I have to plan and build a comprehensive regenerative database/map of the complete human body which will be the input of the ultimate human regenerative software. It is so, because in…

Bodies in the Making book, essays by UC Santa Cruz professors

A new book coedited by UC Santa Cruz Literature and Anthropology professors Helene Moglen and Nancy Chen, Bodies in the Making: Transgressions and Transformations, explores a range of practices that aren’t usually linked: tattooing, cosmetic surgery, body-building, life extension technologies, self-cutting. The common denominator is intended to be body hacking, modification and our fascination with…

Impact of Longer Lives on Retirement and Careers

From NewsReleaseWire: Futurists Look At Impact of Longer Lives on Retirement and Careers at the 2006 meeting of the World Future Society in Toronto. How to choose you post-career life well in an ageless society. Link

How to protect the right for pimm when the costs are extremely high?

Now we have the introduction into the basic language of rights, duties and moral persons, and set the 3 hypothetic cost stages of the continuous regeneration treatment called pimm. The probable course of introducing pimm treatment into the real world is this: first the costs will be very high, then moderately expensive, eventually cheap enough…

Moral, instrumental, human rights: framework for pimm philosophy

In order to get new philosophical insights from the pimm thought experiment and to prepare well for the future, we have to set up a philosophical framework, so let us move to normative morality, and the concept of rights. Normative morality is referred here by Bernard Gert as a code of conduct that all rational…

Why is the moral problem of extending human lifespan is inevitable?

Let us see a philosophical connection between euthanasy and life extension: As the moral problem of ending human life is inevitable , so inevitable a moral problem is the extending of human lifespan, and exactly for the same two reasons as terminating life namely i., the pluralisation of world views and attitudes of life, some…

Mitochondria, the not so hidden superstars of current life sciences

If one thing is for sure, it is mitochondrion’s ascending career in late biology. Mitochondria are the power centers of the eukariotic cell and eventually tell the nucleus what to do next: die or live. Mitos do not exist stably as distinct, individual, autonomous organelles according to new results, but form a highly dynamic semi-tubular…

More Life: Pro-Tech campaign for life extension&regenerative medicine

The web will transform politics too: Campaigns Wikia was launched about two weeks ago by Wikipedia-founder Jimmy Wales and the Mission Statement took the form of An open letter to the blogosphere Here is my idea: online-offline Pro-Tech campaign&happening for life extension&regenerative medicine&biotech which fits well for the participatory politics-driven spirit of Campaigns Wikia and…

Pimm text published in a traditional book

The abridged version of my philosophy MA thesis about pimm was published in a traditional book, you can download it here under the title: Partial immortalization and the philosophical problems of human biotechnology and regenerative medicine

The parameters of a partially immortalized individual

According to the pimm script the parameters of a partially immortalized individual are: -the individual is continuously and voluntarily under regeneration treatment, its own body parts are partially regenerated. – the individual could quit out of the regeneration treatment voluntarily at any stadium without harming his health, and can choose normal (evolutionary made and fixed)…

Maximum and/or radical life extension?

A crucial terminological and conceptual point, which came into my mind, when I read this old Fight Aging! post: When experts, even the most comitted proponents are talking about radical life extension, they usually mention only a few hundreds or thousands years, and then put the enigmatic "more" tag at the end, but they are…

Why is partial immortalization theoretically and technologically possible?

There are two main arguments supporting our modal statement: i., negative: there is not any particular natural law, neither biological, nor physical which excludes this possibility. ii., positive: we could extrapolate the technological draft of a regeneration treatment of the whole human body from the present results and methods of regenerative medicine. Concerning the first…

What is (and is not) partial immortalization?

The aim of regenerative medicine is to regenerate all tissues and organs of the human body with the help of stem cells’ regenerative potential. Theoretically if all tissues and organs of an adult body were regenerated once, then it could be regenerated two and eventually n times. (Think of the scheme of a Proof by…

Let’s write a book about partial immortalization now online!

Hi, I am Attila Chordash (say tshor-dash) = Attila Csordás (Hungarian), a last year PhD student, a trained molecular biologist and biotechnologist, and my topic is stem cell biology, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine. I got a master’s degree in philosophy too. My plan here is to write an online book (bloog, blook) about Partial immortalization…