Google Wants You to Live 170 Years

Along the lines of self-driving cars and smart glasses, Google's newest venture promises to wow the tech scene. Only, it's not quite tech, at least in the traditional sense. The venture is called California Life Company, or Calico for short, and its goal is to extend human life by 20 to 100 years.

It sounds surreal, until consider that we already extended human life by 20 years over the past century. The average girl born today will live to be 100, a once outlying achievement.

Other research outlets have made relevant discoveries over the years, including worms that divide stem cells without aging and that resveratrol, found in red wine, seems to defend against diseases related to aging and could be manufactured as a more potent synthetic drug.

Meanwhile, companies such as Elixir Pharmaceuticals, Sirtris Pharma and Halcyon Molecular set out to extend human life, only to shut down (or be acquired, then shuttered by the buyer), many times running out of money before bringing a product to market.

Don't be quick to assume Google's involvement is strictly to benefit the common good, however. CEO Larry Page is pushing to spend on long term rather than incremental R&D. There's money to be made here. The regenerative medicine industry is valued at $1.6 billion, and anti-aging products are virtually resistant to economic cycles. Therapies available today may be expensive, untrustworthy and could produce horrific results.

But one thing is true: The quest to live just a bit longer is in demand.

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If the Body Is a Machine, Can It Be Maintained Indefinitely?

Excerpt from article

Metabolic processes drive the day-to-day business of living, but they also inevitably cause cellular damage. The body’s range of self-repair mechanisms don’t take care of everything. Eventually, a lifetime of accumulated damage causes the familiar signs of aging like “thinning skin, cloudy eyes, muscles sapped of strength, heart disease, and cognitive decline.”

De Grey is known for his research into engineered negligible senescence. Negligible senescence is a term used to describe certain animals that don’t display symptoms of aging. De Grey believes we can use biotechnology to engineer negligible senescence in humans, and he cofounded the SENS Research Foundation to lead the way.

SENS focuses on seven categories of universal damage that contribute to aging.

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Genetics Startup Wants To Prolong Life, 'Make 100 Years Old The Next 60'

J. Craig Venter, the scientist and entrepreneur involved in the first sequencing of the human genome and the first synthetic cell, today announced a typically ambitious project: tack another few decades onto everyone's lives through the largest human genome-sequencing project ever conceived. (Y'know, relatively typical.)

Venter is launching a new company, Human Longevity, through $70 million of venture funding, with the goal of sequencing 40,000 human genomes yearly. Eventually, a bank of biodata will be amassed that could provide insight into age-related illnesses--and maybe even the process of aging itself. The company wants to use new, $10-million machines to drive the cost of a sequence down to about $1,000, and everyone--healthy, sick, young, old--will have their genomes added to the bank.

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A Genetic Entrepreneur Sets His Sights on Aging and Death

J. Craig Venter is the latest wealthy entrepreneur to think he can cheat aging and death. And he hopes to do so by resorting to his first love: sequencing genomes.

On Tuesday, Dr. Venter announced that he was starting a new company, Human Longevity, which will focus on figuring out how people can live longer and healthier lives.

To do that, the company will build what Dr. Venter says will be the largest human DNA sequencing operation in the world, capable of processing 40,000 human genomes a year.

The huge amount of DNA data will be combined with huge amounts of other data on the health and body composition of the people whose DNA is sequenced, in the hope of gleaning insights into the molecular causes of aging and age-related illnesses like cancer and heart disease.

Slowing aging, if it can be done, could be a way to prevent many diseases, an alternative to treating one disease a time.

“Your age is your No. 1 risk factor for almost every disease, but it’s not a disease itself,” Dr. Venter said in an interview. Still, his company will also work on treating individual diseases of aging.

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Google’s plans to radically extend the human lifespan

Radical life extension went mainstream

Back in September, Google announced Calico, a company that will focus on health and well-being. But its ultimate purpose is to radically extend the human lifespan. As TIME put it, "That would be crazy — if it weren't Google." By launching Calico, Google CEO Larry Page hopes to tackle some of health care's most pressing problems. And by virtue of doing so, the company hopes to be a major player — if not the major player — in the burgeoning efforts to slow down, or even halt, the aging process in humans.

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Scientists discover DNA body clock

Newly discovered mechanism could help researchers understand ageing process and lead to ways of slowing it down

A US scientist has discovered an internal body clock based on DNA that measures the biological age of our tissues and organs.

The clock shows that while many healthy tissues age at the same rate as the body as a whole, some of them age much faster or slower. The age of diseased organs varied hugely, with some many tens of years "older" than healthy tissue in the same person, according to the clock.

Researchers say that unravelling the mechanisms behind the clock will help them understand the ageing process and hopefully lead to drugs and other interventions that slow it down.

Therapies that counteract natural ageing are attracting huge interest from scientists because they target the single most important risk factor for scores of incurable diseases that strike in old age.

"Ultimately, it would be very exciting to develop therapy interventions to reset the clock and hopefully keep us young," said Steve Horvath, professor of genetics and biostatistics at the University of California in Los Angeles.

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For A Longer Life, You Might Try Mowing The Lawn

We all know we're supposed to exercise daily, but precious few of us do. And it only seems to get harder with age.

There's a reason to try harder, though. Tacking more years of good health on to your life may be as simple as mowing the lawn more often and engaging in other everyday physical activities.

Researchers in Sweden measured the health of almost 4,000 60-year-olds in the late 1990s. A dozen years later, they checked back in. The people who had been active but not "exercising" at age 60 had a 27 percent lower risk of heart attack and stroke over that time, and a 30 percent lower risk of death.
Most Americans spend the majority of their waking hours sitting still in front of a computer or television.

The most active people also had trimmer waists, and better and , considered risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.

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What German Wisdom Can Teach The Rest Of The World About The Good Life

The people of Germany, with their reputation for having an industrial-strength work ethic, may not spring to mind as the happiest or healthiest people around. Yes, Germans are better known for their beer and brats than their wellness rituals. But at the same time, with their unique ways to relax, unplug, enjoy nature, and tap into the wisdom of their rich traditions, Germans have lot to teach the rest of the world about living the good life.

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100 Ways To Live To 100

Want to add more and better years to your life? Now is the time.

We're living longer than ever: The average American born in 2013 will be alive nearly four years longer than someone born 20 years ago. But until recently, it wasn't clear if the years we've added to our lives were good-quality years.

A recent study from the University of Massachusetts Medical School starts to answer that question. Researchers found that today, 25 year olds can expect to live "2.4 more years of a healthy life" and 65 year olds can look forward to 1.7 extra healthy years than people who lived two decades back.

However, those extra years are far from guaranteed. Childhood obesity and its associated diseases threaten to reverse the upward tick of American life expectancy, which is currently calculated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to be just shy of 79 years.

Much of making it to your 100th birthday is beyond your control, as longevity is partly dictated by genetics and the medical history and health habits of your parents and grandparents. But there are also a handful (okay, a lot) of lifespan-enhancing practices that you can adopt today -- like taking your allotted vacation days, eating more leafy greens and getting enough sleep.

Full list here

End of aging within reach, experts say

Ethical Technology

Posted: Aug 5, 2013

Anti-aging activist Aubrey de Grey has identified medical advances that will eliminate much of the wear and tear our bodies suffer, as we grow old. Those who undergo continuous repair treatments, de Grey said in a Futurist Magazine article; could remain healthy for millennia without fears of dying from old age.

A growing number of researchers around the world support the belief that eternal health and youth can be realized. Aging is a destructive biochemical event, experts say, and scientists are on the brink of developing interventions for all of its life-destroying processes.

"Over 100,000 people die every day from age-related diseases," de Grey says; "but research ventures, some which are in beginning stages today, promise to one day end this carnage."

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What Hawaiians Can Teach The Rest of America About Living Better

Hawaii’s tropical island paradise isn’t the fountain of youth, but it’s close. Hawaiians not only live longer -- they’re less stressed and happier than residents of any other state.

Just how much longer are Hawaiians living? A 65-year-old in Hawaii will live another 16.2 years on average, as compared to another 10.6 years in Mississippi, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And in addition to living longer lives, Hawaiians are getting happier as time goes on. For the past four years, Hawaii has taken the top spot in Gallup-Healthways' statewide well-being poll.

So what are the Aloha State’s secrets to happiness and longevity?

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