Toggle light / dark theme

Humankind could risk dying out if we don’t develop life extension technology

A lot of people worry about overpopulation, but maybe it’s population decline we should worry about instead?


- Norwegian version: Menneskeheten kan risikere å dø ut hvis vi ikke utvikler livsforlengende teknologier

In earlier times, population growth was limited by the fact that the majority of children died before they were old enough to have children themselves. Illness and lack of resources has probably contributed greatly to the high childhood mortality. Today our technology is better, and so we are able to utilize the Earth’s resources more efficiently, and now, luckily, most people survive childhood. This has led to a population explosion. The greater number of people has led to faster technological progress, which is making room for still more people, and so on — a virtuous circle that helps to give human beings a better standard of living.

But as we have gotten better standards of living, the number of children we get has declined. Just during the last 50 years, the number of children born per woman (fertility rate) has more than halved from 4.9 to less than 2.4 worldwide:

Is Aging The World’s Biggest Problem?

Yes, aging is the world’s biggest problem!

In this article I’ve compared aging to other potential world problems in terms of how many years of life each problem takes away from an average person.

Aging takes away about 1000 years of life per person in developed countries, so, obviously, no other problem comes close to that.


What’s the world’s biggest problem? Is it possible to say? Well, to be able to compare alternatives, you at least need some criterion to evaluate against, and what should that criterion be?

Here are some possibilities:

If you’re alive in 30 years, chances are good you may also be alive in 1000 years

I wrote this two years ago, so should be 28 years now smile

“So considering how far we’ve come already and how fast technology is improving and can be expected to improve in the future, I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’ll have the aging process under control in less than 30 years. Maybe 30 years is too cautious an estimate, even. Ray Kurzweil has said that already by 2030, life expectancy will increase by one year per year, and I actually won’t be very surprised if he’s right. But everyone in the world won’t get access to the technology as early as Kurzweil estimates, which is why nearly 30 years might still be closer to the truth for most people?”


- Norwegian version: Hvis du lever om 30 år, er det gode sjanser for at du også kan leve om 1000 år

Sounds unlikely? It’s not — it’s actually quite likely.

The only way to get people to live for a thousand years or more is to develop advanced technologies that can manipulate our bodies down to the cellular and molecular level. So the question is whether humanity will develop the necessary technologies over the next 30 years, or not. Personally, I think it’s very close to 100% certain that we’ll manage to do this.

Steve Horvath – Aging and the Epigenetic Clocks

Today we bring you an interview with Professor Steve Horvath pioneer of the epigenetic clocks of aging.

Steve Horvath is a Professor of Human Genetics and Biostatistics at UCLA. His research sits at the intersection of biostatistics, bioinformatics, computational biology, cancer research, genetics, epidemiology, epigenomics, machine learning, and systems biology.

Hormone Replacement: Can It Treat Aging Skin?

Aging skin is a major concern for menopausal women – who experience hormone changes – as it affects self-confidence, psychological wellbeing, intimate relationships, and is the one life challenge where women don’t budget. The anti-aging industry, which is worth $50 billion a year, knows this very well!

When women notice more wrinkles, increased sagging, dullness, dryness and feeling less attractive, they usually opt for fillers, Botox, threads, chemical peels, etc. However, the question remains: how long will all of these sustain rapidly aging skin? Scientific evidence suggests that women lose 30% of their collagen content in the first five menopausal years. Recently, it has been proposed that using bioidentical HRT during this critical time of rapid skin aging can hugely prevent menopausal skin aging.

Furthermore, in the European anti-aging market, “skin HRT” is already being used to prevent rapid changes in menopausal skin by targeting oestrogen receptors. “Skin HRT” is used as an anti-aging cosmeceutical, not just to prevent rapid skin aging, but it can be safely used in women where HRT is contraindicated, as it does not absorb systemically.

Inflammaging and Age-related Disease

The aging process is accompanied by a chronic, smoldering background of inflammation that researchers call “inflammaging”. This backdrop of low-grade inflammation contributes significantly to mortality risk in the elderly and has a number of sources.

Today, we are going to take a look at inflammaging and the various known sources that promote this age-related inflammatory condition.

Longevity industry systematized for first time

See a close-up of the above image!

UK aging research foundation produces roadmap for the emerging longevity industry in a series of reports to be published throughout the year

Friday, Feb. 2, 2017, London, UK: The Biogerontology Research Foundation has embarked on a year-long mission to summarise in a single document the various emerging technologies and industries which can be brought to bear on aging, healthy longevity, and everything in between, as part of a joint project between The Global Longevity Consortium, consisting of the Biogerontology Research Foundation, Deep Knowledge Life Sciences, Aging Analytics Agency and Longevity. International platform.

For scientists, policy makers, regulators, government officials, investors and other stakeholders, a consensus understanding of the field of human longevity remains fragmented, and has yet to be systematized by any coherent framework, and has not yet been the subject of a comprehensive report profiling the field and industry as a whole by any analytical agency to date. The consortium behind this series of reports hope that they will come to be used as a sort of Encyclopedia Britannica and specialized Wikipedia of the emerging longevity industry, with the aim of serving as the foundation upon which the first global framework of the industry will be built, given the significant industry growth projected over the coming years.

Cellular Senescence in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases

Today, we wanted to bring your attention to a new open access paper. The authors here review the role of cellular senescence in the context of the cardiovascular and metabolic diseases of aging. This paper puts special focus on the aging of the vascular system and the role that accumulating numbers of senescent cells play in that process.

What is cellular senescence?

As the body ages, increasing amounts of cells enter a state of senescence. Senescent cells do not divide or support the tissues of which they are a part; instead, they emit a range of potentially harmful signals known collectively as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Senescent cells normally destroy themselves via a programmed process called apoptosis, and they are removed by the immune system; however, as the immune system weakens with age, increasing numbers of these senescent cells escape this process and build up.

Life, death, immortality, the 21st century way

New article in Republican Herald out with #transhumanism for Palm Sunday:


Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. It is a week of great drama, but not of tragedy. A few days after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ will be crucified. On Easter, the first day of a new week, he will rise from the dead to live eternally.

Belief in this resurrection is the core of Christian faith, and on Easter Christians proclaim, “Oh death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

These words of hope and faith were written by St. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians. Strangely, in 2018, they could also be a rallying cry for transhumanists and life-extenders, atheists in their vast majority.

For them, death is the great enemy because “Death is wrong.” This is the title of a 2014 transhumanist children’s book by Gennady Stolyarov II, whose young character angrily tells his mother that “people should not die.”