26 Jun 2008
The Fight to End Aging Gains Legitimacy, Funding

Maybe next week he'll demo a perpetual motion machine, too.

This "research" tickles me, because it's motivation is so transparent: fear of death. It's alchemy reborn, only with modern tools and jargon. But it'll get no further than it did five hundred years ago. No Philosophers Stone, and no Fountain of Youth, just wasted days fearing the inevitable.

Think about it - without death, there can be no life. And everything that lives will someday die. How far human life can be extended is open to some debate, but immortality, which is the real, unspoken goal of these wingnuts, is a contradiction and, in the end, a potential nightmare.

In research that will first be presented on Friday at the conference, Methuselah-funded scientists will demonstrate a proof-of-concept experiment for using bacterial enzymes to fight atherosclerosis, or the hardening of the arteries.

(link) [Wired: Top Stories]

18:21 /Technology | 2 comments | permanent link