My last f-factors blog was about salmon sperm, how one of its uses (other than impregnating salmon) has become as an anti-ageing treatment. This blog is about taking that process rather further, theoretically at least taking us all the way to immortality. Peter Thiel, the extremely wealthy businessman who co-founded PayPal and Palantir, a huge data-analytics company, has also invested in an organisation called the Methuselah Foundation which has the goal of “making 90 the new 50 by 2030”. Methuselah (whose image is on the home page) apparently attained the age of 969, making him the longest-living person the Bible and a symbol of extraordinary longevity across many religions.
Thiel has reportedly said that he aims to live to 120. But, while granted that Methuselah is surely out of range, is he being ambitious enough with where he is setting the bar? At a summit in Beijing in September, a microphone picked up a conversation between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his two companions – President Xi of China and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. “Biotechnology is continuously developing,” Putin said. “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become…[you can] even achieve immortality.” Xi could be heard to laugh, and while neither agreeing or disagreeing with the premise Putin had suggested, he replied: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years.”
Putin returned to the subject in answer to a question at a subsequent press conference. “Modern means of healing, medicine, even all kinds of surgery related to organ replacement allow humanity to hope that active life will continue differently than it does today,” he said. “The average age of life expectancy varies in different countries [it is lower, for example, in Ukraine than it is in the UK!] but nevertheless it will increase significantly.” For a guy who is responsible for causing so much death, Putin does seem deeply fascinated by the subject of life. Indeed, he is openly obsessed with his health and the prospect of attaining remarkable longevity.
Laboratory experiments on mice have indicated that ‘cell identification’, which connects to ageing, could be reset. Whether that could happen with humans, given the accompanying medical procedures that may be necessary in order to attempt to achieve the purpose, is another matter. A piece in The Times reported that other scientists were probing the possibilities of the ‘tortoise strategy’: slowing the ageing process rather than halting or even reversing it. Whether Putin would be content merely to aim that low is unclear.
Finally, there is a book called The Immortalists by Aleks Krotoski. It carries the nifty subhead of ‘The Death of Death and the Race for Eternal Life’. I wonder if it’s been translated into Russian? In the meantime, a happy new year to all!