Scientist With Convincing Beard Suggests We Could All Live Longer Than We’re Prepared To

I think we’re approaching the most eventful 100 years in history.

My friend Alnoor sent me this video of scientist Aubrey de Grey at the TED Conference sharing his prediction that we’re closer to dramatically extending human life than we think. He also says that the first person to live to 1000 may be alive today. I love that we live in a society with the balls to challenge the most basic “facts of life” and approach them as “engineering problems” we can solve.

This isn’t as far fetched as it sounds. A friend of mine works in an MIT lab next to some students who have managed to extend the life of mice by 1/3 by restricting their caloric intake. Meanwhile, people on the calorie restriction diet claim they’re extending their lives by minimizing their caloric intake while getting precise amounts of the nutrients they need.

I can’t think of anything more brave than a world where people’s lives span 10 centuries and a first generation will manage a thousand years of life without any role models having gone before them. Go humans.