Posts Tagged ‘immortality’

Does aging stop?

Monday, June 6th, 2011

One scientist thinks so.

Aging and getting old are not the same process, and some of us can deliberately freeze the former during our 40s, 50s or 60s.

This is an idea put forth by Michael Rose of the University California, Irvine — a guy who creates freakishly long-lived “Methuselah” fruit flies for his day job.

Rose joined the stage at the World Science Festival* in New York City with three other gerontological experts: Aubrey de Grey of the SENS Foundation, Judith Campisi of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and Leonard Guarente of MIT.

Local TV-news legend Bill Ritter moderated the June 2nd chat, called “From Dust to…: The Radical New Science of Longevity.”

The dance of question-and-answer proceeded normally until about halfway through, when Rose dropped a figurative bomb.

(more…)

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Posted in Events, Life | No Comments »

Goodbye, Gram

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

It’s been two months since I’ve posted anything, but I’m a little drunk on emotion and need to write.

My last grandmother — a survivor of the Great Depression, the world’s greatest storyteller, owner of the biggest cookie cutter collection I’ve ever seen, master of the Myst computer games, wizard at cards, Scrabble genius, photo album creator extraordinaire, mother to four daughters, and many other wonderful things — passed away today at the age of 80 years in a hospice center in Dayton, Ohio.

In many ways I was prepared for this.

While I was in town about 3 years ago, I joined her for breakfast at the Golden Nugget restaurant. She used to take my brother, sister and me there as kids and order the famous “clown waffle,” which is exactly what it sounds like. Except better: A giant Belgian waffle smothered in whipped cream, topped with maraschino cherries for eyes and nose, a sausage link for the mouth. And big heaping cups of hot chocolate, topped with (of course) extra whipped cream.

After the waitress refused to indulge my childhood craving for the edible clown face, my grandma and I sat there holding our big-kid hot chocolates (aka coffee) and talked about life.

(more…)

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Posted in Life | 7 Comments »

Revisit: Human v2.0

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

BBC Human v2.0Last month I pounded out a post about the implications of our seemingly inevitable immortality — when man becomes machine, or machine becomes man.

Sounds silly, but myself and expert technologists are dead-serious about that “inevitable” part.

Probably not within our lifetime (if you’re reading this in 2010), though. I’d wager at least one future generation or, even likelier, a couple of generations down the crazy road of technology.
Unless you’re as optimistic as Ray Kurzweil.

This is all to admit my ignorance: When I wrote that, I had no idea the BBC produced a fantastic show called Human v2.0 a few years ago.

The sub-1-hour special taps into the minds of visionaries and scientists alike who wake up and go to bed thinking about this stuff. When they do sleep, of course. (more…)

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Posted in Technology, Video | No Comments »

On immortality

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Immortality. Something more esoteric than I usually brave to tread, so please cut your mental parachutes and join me in free fall. (Don’t worry, I packed us a backup ‘chute.)

First, some back story:
This March at a science writers mixer, I met Rita King — CEO of Dancing Ink Productions, IBM innovator, mayor of Loveland, writer, and so on. Suffice to say, she wears a lot of hats.

I mined advice from King in anticipation of the then-upcoming social media panel. We spoke about good presenting techniques, social media trends, virtual and augmented reality technology, and increasingly more far-out and futuristic conjectures that nerds tend to have after drinking one too many Black and Tans.

So it goes.

Today, King invited me to comment on her recent post at The Imagination Age about filmmaker/Current TV host/personality Jason Silva‘s Turning Into Gods, a new full-length documentary exploring immortality.

Here’s the trailer:

From my limited vantage point, Silva seems very bright-eyed about a future with immortality in it.

Good for him!

Me? I think it a future with immortality in it is profound and exhilarating. But it also freaks me the hell out.

Allow me explain. (more…)

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Posted in Brain, Space and Astronomy, Technology | 2 Comments »