August 07, 2025
I'll Worry When I'm 200
Timothy Birdnow
Humanity comes one step closer to S-F writer Larry Niven's Boosterspice, the longevity drug that makes people live up to a thousand years.
https://studyfinds.org/aging-contagious-protein/
A study published in the journal Metabolism and conducted by American and South Korean researchers determined that there is an aging protein that triggerssenescence and that it is passed on like an infection.
The culprit is a protein called HMGB1 which spreads from cell to cell, switching them off like a night watchman switching off lights in a building.
This helps explain why aging seems to happen quite quickly in some individuals.
In other immortality news scientistshave discovered a wasp that can slow it's own aging under certain circumsttances.
FTA:
So it appears aging isn't set in stone, and it may be triggered by a specific protein. If we can learn the secret of that we can perhaps create longevity drugs that extend our lifespan.
But if we are to live hundreds, or even thousands, of years what of the brain? I suspect the human brain's storage capacity has limits. Mine is probably about as full as it's going to get and I'm growing increasingly forgetful now. It may be we can live longer but wind up like potted plants. Who wants that?
But as my father says (and he ought to know, at age 94) the only person who wants to live to be a hundred is the guy who is 99.
At any rate we are on course to make a major leap forward in life expectancy, even if it is only by a decade or two.
The consequences of longevity have been much studied in Science Fiction; Niven, whom I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, looked at many of them. So did Asimov and others. The problem is nobody would ever go away and society wouldn't change; the guy who owns the company would still own the company when his great grandkids are waiting to take over. King Charles would still be king of Britain in a hundred years. Society would become schlerotic as you would be forever at the bottom, or at least for a long, long time as you aged. The young would become quite restive, anngry or bitter over the fact they woldn't get their chance. Imagine not having an ex-wife for a few decades but a few hundred years! Nagging, nagging, nagging - and the alimony would never end! This would spawn enormous societal changes over time. Professors and researchers would remain the same people so new ideas would slow to a crawl.
I don't know how good it would be, but on the other hand who wants to die when you can extend your lifespan? I see no way around it once the technology is in place.
In Niven's universe the old often became reckless and died by making imprudent decisions; they were bored out of their skulls. Louis Wu, the central character in Niven's most famous story Ringworld was such a person; Ringword starts on his 200th birthday and he accepts a crazy offer to explore because he couldn't stand another minute of the same old, same old.
Longevity could be a terrible curse. In ASimov's novels the "Spacers" - colonists in other star systems, eventually die out because they have longevity medicines, giving them too much life and too little to show for it (along with their having robots to do everything, basically making everyone's life an empty shell). Asimov may be correct.
But I'm not so sure; certainly practice makes perfect and a very old person could (provided his memory doesn't fail) become enormously skilled at many things, and may be able to apply knowledge from other fields to whatever he or she is in. Now science is comparmentalized, but under such a system it could cross-fertilize as a specialist in one branch becomes a specialist in another and draws on all his experience. Maybe. Also, immortals may at last learn wisdom in heir dotage. Now many of us only become wise as we no longer can influence the world. Perhaps we will lose the arrogance of youth but retain the knowledge? Who knows.
At any rate I think we are getting nearer to having the ability to extend our lives considerably, and I for one won't mess that up worrying about what comes after. The future is alwaysin the process of being created. Time enough to worry when I'm 200.
Humanity comes one step closer to S-F writer Larry Niven's Boosterspice, the longevity drug that makes people live up to a thousand years.
https://studyfinds.org/aging-contagious-protein/
A study published in the journal Metabolism and conducted by American and South Korean researchers determined that there is an aging protein that triggerssenescence and that it is passed on like an infection.
The culprit is a protein called HMGB1 which spreads from cell to cell, switching them off like a night watchman switching off lights in a building.
This helps explain why aging seems to happen quite quickly in some individuals.
In other immortality news scientistshave discovered a wasp that can slow it's own aging under certain circumsttances.
FTA:
The research, conducted by scientists at the University of Leicester and published in the journal PNAS, shows that this period of suspended development significantly increases the wasps’ lifespan. Even more notably, it slows the progression of their "epigenetic clock”—a molecular measure of how quickly an organism ages.
Aging involves more than simply getting older over time. It is a biological process that imprints lasting chemical changes on our DNA. One of the most reliable tools for measuring this is the epigenetic clock, which tracks age-related changes in DNA methylation. These chemical markers accumulate as we grow older. This study asks an intriguing question: what if the pace of development could be adjusted to influence the aging process itself?
To find out, a team at the University of Leicester including first author PhD student Erin Foley, Dr Christian Thomas, Professor Charalambos Kyriacou, and Professor Eamonn Mallon, from the department of Genetics, Genomics and Cancer Sciences, turned to Nasonia Vitripennis, also known as the jewel wasp.
This tiny insect is becoming a powerful model for aging research because, unlike many other invertebrates, it has a functioning DNA methylation system, just like humans, and a short lifespan that makes it ideal to study.
The researchers exposed jewel wasp mothers to cold and darkness, triggering a hibernation-like state in their babies called diapause. This natural "pause button” extended the offsprings’ adult lifespan by over a third. Even more remarkably, the wasps that had gone through diapause aged 29% more slowly at the molecular level than their counterparts. Their epigenetic clocks ticked more leisurely, offering the first direct evidence that the pace of biological aging can be developmentally tuned in an invertebrate.
"It’s like the wasps who took a break early in life came back with extra time in the bank,” said Evolutionary Biology Professor Eamonn Mallon, senior author on the study.
"It shows that aging isn’t set in stone, it can be slowed by the environment, even before adulthood begins.
Aging involves more than simply getting older over time. It is a biological process that imprints lasting chemical changes on our DNA. One of the most reliable tools for measuring this is the epigenetic clock, which tracks age-related changes in DNA methylation. These chemical markers accumulate as we grow older. This study asks an intriguing question: what if the pace of development could be adjusted to influence the aging process itself?
To find out, a team at the University of Leicester including first author PhD student Erin Foley, Dr Christian Thomas, Professor Charalambos Kyriacou, and Professor Eamonn Mallon, from the department of Genetics, Genomics and Cancer Sciences, turned to Nasonia Vitripennis, also known as the jewel wasp.
This tiny insect is becoming a powerful model for aging research because, unlike many other invertebrates, it has a functioning DNA methylation system, just like humans, and a short lifespan that makes it ideal to study.
The researchers exposed jewel wasp mothers to cold and darkness, triggering a hibernation-like state in their babies called diapause. This natural "pause button” extended the offsprings’ adult lifespan by over a third. Even more remarkably, the wasps that had gone through diapause aged 29% more slowly at the molecular level than their counterparts. Their epigenetic clocks ticked more leisurely, offering the first direct evidence that the pace of biological aging can be developmentally tuned in an invertebrate.
"It’s like the wasps who took a break early in life came back with extra time in the bank,” said Evolutionary Biology Professor Eamonn Mallon, senior author on the study.
"It shows that aging isn’t set in stone, it can be slowed by the environment, even before adulthood begins.
So it appears aging isn't set in stone, and it may be triggered by a specific protein. If we can learn the secret of that we can perhaps create longevity drugs that extend our lifespan.
But if we are to live hundreds, or even thousands, of years what of the brain? I suspect the human brain's storage capacity has limits. Mine is probably about as full as it's going to get and I'm growing increasingly forgetful now. It may be we can live longer but wind up like potted plants. Who wants that?
But as my father says (and he ought to know, at age 94) the only person who wants to live to be a hundred is the guy who is 99.
At any rate we are on course to make a major leap forward in life expectancy, even if it is only by a decade or two.
The consequences of longevity have been much studied in Science Fiction; Niven, whom I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, looked at many of them. So did Asimov and others. The problem is nobody would ever go away and society wouldn't change; the guy who owns the company would still own the company when his great grandkids are waiting to take over. King Charles would still be king of Britain in a hundred years. Society would become schlerotic as you would be forever at the bottom, or at least for a long, long time as you aged. The young would become quite restive, anngry or bitter over the fact they woldn't get their chance. Imagine not having an ex-wife for a few decades but a few hundred years! Nagging, nagging, nagging - and the alimony would never end! This would spawn enormous societal changes over time. Professors and researchers would remain the same people so new ideas would slow to a crawl.
I don't know how good it would be, but on the other hand who wants to die when you can extend your lifespan? I see no way around it once the technology is in place.
In Niven's universe the old often became reckless and died by making imprudent decisions; they were bored out of their skulls. Louis Wu, the central character in Niven's most famous story Ringworld was such a person; Ringword starts on his 200th birthday and he accepts a crazy offer to explore because he couldn't stand another minute of the same old, same old.
Longevity could be a terrible curse. In ASimov's novels the "Spacers" - colonists in other star systems, eventually die out because they have longevity medicines, giving them too much life and too little to show for it (along with their having robots to do everything, basically making everyone's life an empty shell). Asimov may be correct.
But I'm not so sure; certainly practice makes perfect and a very old person could (provided his memory doesn't fail) become enormously skilled at many things, and may be able to apply knowledge from other fields to whatever he or she is in. Now science is comparmentalized, but under such a system it could cross-fertilize as a specialist in one branch becomes a specialist in another and draws on all his experience. Maybe. Also, immortals may at last learn wisdom in heir dotage. Now many of us only become wise as we no longer can influence the world. Perhaps we will lose the arrogance of youth but retain the knowledge? Who knows.
At any rate I think we are getting nearer to having the ability to extend our lives considerably, and I for one won't mess that up worrying about what comes after. The future is alwaysin the process of being created. Time enough to worry when I'm 200.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:56 AM
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1
Be careful what you wish for!
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at August 09, 2025 12:45 AM (77bpF)
2
Yes indeed. Longevity might be a curse and not a blessing.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at August 09, 2025 01:29 PM (kx7n2)
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