That is principally fairly cool. Beats the choice, as they are saying. However one decidedly uncool factor about being nearly 50 is that my “unhealthy” LDL ldl cholesterol is simply too excessive. The plain answer right here is to enhance my weight loss program and get extra train. But when that had been really easy, nobody would have excessive ldl cholesterol, proper? Another choice may be to go on statins—use remedy to carry it down. A lot of folks do that, however it’s a remedy, not a remedy, and the negative effects may be intense. 

Or, simply possibly, I may have my genes edited utilizing CRISPR, as a affected person in New Zealand just lately did, to completely scale back my LDL. Provided that coronary heart illness is a number one reason behind loss of life, that might meaningfully delay my life. There’s nonetheless a lot to study concerning the effectiveness of such a remedy, however the mere prospect is fairly wonderful. 

The issues we will do to change our our bodies at the moment would have appeared like science fiction just some years in the past. Scratch that—a few of them nonetheless sound like science fiction. Growing old and loss of life have lengthy been our inevitable fates, constants of life that start with beginning. However what if growing older isn’t inevitable? What if we may gradual and even reverse the method? This can be much less far-fetched than you think about.

A flotilla of billionaires and Silicon Valley elites, and even the Saudi royal household, have poured staggering quantities of cash into this query, funding startups and analysis that search to increase our time on Earth. Antonio Regalado has the story of the search for medical rejuvenation: researchers wish to reprogram our cells to make them younger once more, letting us lead longer, more healthy lives. 

Or much more intriguing: What if we may cheat loss of life and dwell eternally? As a result of we will. Or a minimum of our digital replicas can, as Charlotte Jee realized when she educated an AI to create simulacra of her dad and mom. The know-how she explored is considered one of a number of meant to let the residing commune with the useless, on this case by way of Amazon Alexa. 

However even when we will dwell eternally in a wise speaker, for the time being there’s nonetheless no approach round loss of life. In fact, there are lots of people engaged on that. Maybe you may wish to have your corpse preserved at −196 °C within the hopes of being introduced again to life once more someday. The sector of cryonics remains to be trucking alongside, even whether it is “a hopeless aspiration that reveals an appalling ignorance of biology,” as one scientist places it. 

For individuals who have accepted their destiny however need their loss of life to assist others dwell longer, there may be all the time the potential for donating one’s physique to science. Whereas that’s one thing you will have certainly heard of, it’s nothing like what you will have most likely imagined. Abby Ohlheiser pulls again the curtain to disclose how this intimate course of really works. 

I hope this concern serves up so much for you to consider. As all the time, I’d love to listen to your ideas. You possibly can attain me at mat.honan@technologyreview.com.

See you on the opposite facet,

Mat