Zombie Genes the Secret of Longer Life?

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
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Scientists from John Hopkins Medical Institute have discovered a gene mutation that may have implications into extending human life far beyond a normal lifespan. The mutation is in the form of a cancer that forms on the gene itself and lengthens it, causing the possibility of longer life, albeit not a very desirable one.

The question is whether researchers like Heaphy could turn this undeath into something more like eternal life. Knowing which genes to shut down in order to allow telomeres to lengthen could be the first step in a process that ends with healthy cells that don't age.
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like 8 billion people in the world at one time isn't enough ???

drop the world population to 1 million then do the research
or make everyone at John Hopkins watch I AM LEGEND.
 
Exactly :D if we all live for 102390359102403 years, 99.9% of people will need to be sterilized or were going to have to make it illegal for people to drive under 50mph, not carry a gun, and not drink meth.
 
The people who don't think people should live as long as we possibly can let them can go ahead and die. That will take care of some of the population problem :) My thinking is transportation, food, and other various long term issues with a large population will hopefully be solved by technology.
 
You know... this just exudes a certain level of worry and creepiness.

An end-all, do-all fix to longer life doesn't answer the following questions such as:
- How about the limited natural resources on Earth? Remember: We don't have food replicators a la Star Trek.
- Do you stop aging or do you stop yourself at a certain age and remain that age forever? Example: What if you choose to stop aging at the age of 15 and remain that age and appearance for eternity? Imagine the consequences of that.
- What about the risks to overpopulation due to people not dying? You can see the opposite effect in Japan, for example. The population is primarily the elderly last I checked with so few young people procreating. China and India are great examples of overpopulation. Philippines is another but not as much as China and India. Limited resources and wealth to support a large population.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Exactly :D if we all live for 102390359102403 years, 99.9% of people will need to be sterilized or were going to have to make it illegal for people to drive under 50mph, not carry a gun, and not drink meth.
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I'm going to sound like a nerd when i say this, But if you sterilized 99.9% of the people we would fail, Its kinda what happened to the Chozo in the Metroid series. They became longer lived but old age made it where they couldn't reproduce so they died off slowly.
 
Loose Nut said:
like 8 billion people in the world at one time isn't enough ???

drop the world population to 1 million then do the research
or make everyone at John Hopkins watch I AM LEGEND.
Click to expand...

LOL the exact first thing I thought about when I read that article was I am legend :D

but honestly.. do you really want to live forevah!
 
We are heading to a point in time where natural death will be preventable. This will be the most remarkable point in human history.

To deal with over-population, we should start thinking about the groups that we want to exterminate, else billions will die of starvation. Just saying.
 
Looking hopeful that we will be able to extend our lives within my normal lifespan significantly, hopefully within that extended span we will achieve indefinite life.

As to the question of do I want to live forever? I can't answer that, all I know is that I have zero interest in only living my current expectancy. As for overpopulation and such, the reality is a large portion of the population will not want to extend their life for various reasons. Couple that with the inevitable population control measures such as child limits and the fact that technology in many life sustaining areas is rapidly improving. I doubt it will really be much of an issue.
 
Stone Cold said:
We are heading to a point in time where natural death will be preventable. This will be the most remarkable point in human history.

To deal with over-population, we should start thinking about the groups that we want to exterminate, else billions will die of starvation. Just saying.
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We should start with you and your family. :rolleyes:
 
eh, the problem is our culture. it is so f**ked up when it comes to issues of life and death. death is pretty much a fact, is going to happen to every one, multiple times to every family until everyone is gone except for the kids. we like to pretend death does not exist. We ship old people to homes so we don't have to look at them while they waste away and die. Families spend billions of dollars on terminal patients so they can eke out a few more days or weeks at a miserable quality of life. And thats not enough. People have to have more, always more. Well, reality begs to differ.
 
Too bad these genes are also regularly responsible for cancerous tumors.
 
qb4ever said:
LOL the exact first thing I thought about when I read that article was I am legend :D

but honestly.. do you really want to live forevah!
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Probably, yes, I would. I don't know what the afterlife is or isn't, may or may not be, and there's plenty in this existence I would like to do, not to mention I happen to enjoy this existence. Why would I *want* to die eventually if I could prevent it? I can understand people who would take it on faith, but I'm not so sure I wouldn't want to live for as long as I could until quality became a big issue, or an accident happened eventually that claimed my life for me.
 
pretty neat, but I agree it probably shouldn't happen until we figure out how to feed and clothe everyone who's currently alive. Raise living standards, nuclear war that wipes out a large percentage of the population, breeding control, etc. Something would have to happen or we'd be doing nothing but slowly starving ourselves from lack of resources.
 
Stone Cold said:
Good, good, the discussion has started. Now that I know you're on board with what we need to do, we can get to work improving your ideas of which groups to start with.
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You're pretty serious huh? Really people need to die because of ideas like Hitler.
Whatever is made for good, eventually it will be used for evil.

A society of self-interest isn't a society at all, but chaos controlled by those in power.
 
Loose Nut said:
like 8 billion people in the world at one time isn't enough ???

drop the world population to 1 million then do the research
or make everyone at John Hopkins watch I AM LEGEND.
Click to expand...
This is narrowminded thinking. Overpopulation is going to become a problem that the world will have to address whether people live 100 years or 1 million.

I Am Legend... really? We should just stop all science research out of fear of Hollywood fairytales.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Exactly :D if we all live for 102390359102403 years, 99.9% of people will need to be sterilized or were going to have to make it illegal for people to drive under 50mph, not carry a gun, and not drink meth.
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On the other hand, it could finally get us into space. How many good projects get cancelled because their successor wasn't able to continue their research? Or a be able to dedicate an entire hundred years in extra terrestrial research and not just ten or twenty?

Once out in space, 100 years is too short of a lifespan.
 
firas said:
great, now I get to be old for even longer :rolleyes:
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Doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Are todays 70 year olds the equivalent of 40 year olds a few hundred years ago?
 
mannyman said:
I'm going to sound like a nerd when i say this, But if you sterilized 99.9% of the people we would fail, Its kinda what happened to the Chozo in the Metroid series. They became longer lived but old age made it where they couldn't reproduce so they died off slowly.
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nooo, not with humans! Being in short supply would mean the chosen few would become ultra slutty :eek:

Sly said:
On the other hand, it could finally get us into space. How many good projects get cancelled because their successor wasn't able to continue their research? Or a be able to dedicate an entire hundred years in extra terrestrial research and not just ten or twenty?

Once out in space, 100 years is too short of a lifespan.
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Thats why we need hibernation! Which would be a much better and more useful technology! Imagine, you could lock yourself into the time freezing chamber and set it to open when HL3 comes out, or a decent duke nukem game, or when people finally all have hover cars and fly into space. Would solve the problems of billions of eternal life people needing something to eat.

But also reasearch likes stimulus. The new guy coming along with new ideas, and fresh eyes who sees the issue that noone else has in the 30 years theyve worked on something. Then again, if we all lived for a million years, it would give us time to retrain and get or 10,000th certification in something :D
 
How about not reproducing?
We can just not have those annoying little bastards and do no harm to the world population number :D
 
Perhaps Methuselah and other long-lived people in the bible can make sense now to the people who thought such impossible. If a simple genetic difference is all it takes living 900 years doesn't seem so far fetched now that science has discovered a mechanism to explain how it could work.
 
You guys are reading way too far into this ;-) It's either deterioration through age or death via cancer...
 
Don't doctors already want to string along someone with cancer all over the place just to keep milking insurance companies and/or the government for that $5000 a day machine that goes PONG every few minutes
 
sfsuphysics said:
Don't doctors already want to string along someone with cancer all over the place just to keep milking insurance companies and/or the government for that $5000 a day machine that goes PONG every few minutes
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Medical companies do not plan for long term profits.

This whole myth of hospitals and pharmaceuticals milking sick people instead of curing them is retarded.
 
Ezteh said:
Medical companies do not plan for long term profits.

This whole myth of hospitals and pharmaceuticals milking sick people instead of curing them is retarded.
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Because its not a myth its fact.
 
Stop and think of all the jackasses you have to deal with that you just can't get rid of...this would make those jackasses a permanent fixture. :(

You know that the first to get this would be military, politicians and terrorists. :eek:
There'd be no more waiting around for them to just croak & make the world a better place.

Another consideration...will this stop more than just the body from ageing, or will people still lose it eventually? Just imagine the cost of putting mom & dad in a retirement home for even a few hundred years after they've gone senile. If it does keep the brain from breaking down as well...what will the retirement age skyrocket too? 500 years, 800...never?

On the other hand, as someone mentioned earlier, there's another possibility...think Umbrella Corp. :p or would that be :eek: ?

Let's face it, medical science has botched a lot of things, and ruined a lot of lives (they still do), so there could be some definite downsides to this.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Don't doctors already want to string along someone with cancer all over the place just to keep milking insurance companies and/or the government for that $5000 a day machine that goes PONG every few minutes
Click to expand...

Ezteh said:
Medical companies do not plan for long term profits.

This whole myth of hospitals and pharmaceuticals milking sick people instead of curing them is retarded.
Click to expand...

dbu8554 said:
Because its not a myth its fact.
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Exactly! The medical industry is a business, and there's no money in producing cures. No money = no business = no money for stockholders = unhappy stockholders, and we all know that's the last thing they want. Who's kidding who by thinking that the medical industry and pharmaceutical companies are all about the best interest of humanity, and not about the bottom line? They're not in business to put themselves out of business, and it's only "good business practice" to prolong life by selling meds, etc. to people for as long as you can keep them alive by selling them meds, etc..

Hmmm, now put 2 and 2 together and this life extension thing could equal people who live for many years, yet still get the same diseases, and other ailments that come with life, which would potentially make every person worth hundreds, maybe even thousands or more of today's people.

I bet worker's comp & SSI/SSDI and basically every kind of health insurance will fight this tooth and nail! Imagine if they had to pay out on each case for countless years (people who become diabled at an age that's considered young by today's standards, now multiply those remaining years by 100+)? True, they'd make money from people for that much longer, but we all know that they only look at what goes/will potentially go out when making these kinds of decisions.
 
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