Blood cells from 80-year-old donor become stem cells with molecular age under 20

107 points by arunc 3 hours ago

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13634082/

It may be a dumb reason to do it, but recently I've started to focus on my health a bit more because of news like this (more exercise and healthier food).

The thinking is, if we find a way to massively extend the human lifespan/reverse aging I want to live long enough for that.

I'd be pissed if we as humanity solved aging and I die just before that, not taking any chances.

- 18 minutes ago

[deleted]
kcarter80 - 41 minutes ago

Seems like you are interested in living longer. One cool trick to doing that has always been to focus on your health. Are you saying that before recent developments the extension of life benefit wasn't worth it for you? By the way, when you die it's impossible to be "pissed".
- easygenes - 26 minutes ago
  
  Maybe they mean the compromises they're making didn't weigh out enough to be motivating over the thought of just a few more years, but if those few years might make the difference to catching an opportunity for double or more the years it's suddenly motivating enough.
androiddrew - an hour ago

lol, I am kind of in the same mode of thought but just kind of expect it not to happen.
There was a really shitty movie starring Jared Leto I think about the same problem. Being the last guy to miss out on being immortal
- smotched - an hour ago
  
  Mr. Nobody is not a bad movie!

inshard - 2 hours ago

Slightly tangential: Michael Levin’s work on bioelectricity and cell reprogramming is pretty interesting in context of emergent behaviors in groups of cells. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Levin_(biologist)

taneq - an hour ago

Sounds like the immortal jellyfish solution. We squeeze entropy out of our DNA by creating a new fresh cell (ovum) that’s very sensitive to genetic defects, meaning if it survives it’s probably good. The jellyfish just shrinks back to a single cell (presumably with some mechanism for keeping the ‘best’ cell) to reset the damage. This is doing the same thing, but piece by piece.

Edit: And wow, that abstract appears to have eaten an entire thesaurus.

bitwize - an hour ago

Because this is the worst timeline, we're getting cell reprogramming used to grow artificial brains to run AI workloads before functional aging remediation... let alone GTA VI.

layer8 - 3 hours ago

If something like this ever becomes a practical application on the organismal level, the octogenarian dictators of the world will rejoice.

mullingitover - an hour ago

An individual pancreas cell discovering the secret to immortality is a triumph for that cell, and a real bad thing for the body. This is like that, but for the entire human population.
- skissane - an hour ago
  
  Even if medical science one day eliminates aging and disease, nobody is going to live forever—eventually you’ll succumb to an accident, or war, or homicide.
robwwilliams - an hour ago

Not to mention the two leading septuagenarian dictators: Putin and Xi.
malloryerik - an hour ago

Putin keeps talking about living forever, which makes his nuclear threats a bit less worrisome.
- neom - an hour ago
  
  If you're listening just covered this the other day, they did a good job, worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQFE_3Mr4yQ (If you're listening is generally pretty good)
moralestapia - 3 hours ago

To expand, we might find out the hard way that having an expiration date was a feature of our species, not a flaw.
- card_zero - an hour ago
  
  Walk me through it: in order to get dictators killed, because they defend themselves very effectively, we should put everybody on the planet under a biological death sentence, which will get the dictators too.
  No, I cannot endorse this.
  - setr - an hour ago
    
    Science moves forward one death at a time
    So at least two systems run better with the implicit time limit.
    
    card_zero - an hour ago
    
    We should kill the dictators deliberately, improve our biology deliberately, and get stuffy old people like me to change their minds deliberately. No stupid use of death as a proxy, it's a horribly blunt instrument. "Let your ideas die in your place".
    Besides, maybe it's the young people who are the most dogmatic. Studies are inconclusive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle#Rebuttal If we're going to go around killing people for having rigid ideas, perhaps concentrate on the young ones, for statistical reasons.
- mullingitover - 30 minutes ago
  
  It's a feature of every species that evolves. You can't evolve if you're striving to outcompete your offspring. You quickly game out that not having offspring is the winning chess move there. Now you're not having offspring, and thus you're not evolving. Then the environment changes and you, being unable to adapt in any way, go extinct.
- robwwilliams - an hour ago
  
  Definitely a feature: Disposable soma theory of Kirkwood. Your germline is the real “you”.
- bloqs - an hour ago
  
  Neurogenesis slows for a similar reason
- suslik - 2 hours ago
  
  Of course it's a feature; it still doesn't mean it cannot be stopped or considerably postponed.
  - TedDoesntTalk - 2 hours ago
    
    I’m always fascinated by people who think death can be “stopped” (not postponed, but eliminated). Fascinating.
    
    suslik - 2 hours ago
    
    Is there a reason why it can't possibly be stopped?
    
    TedDoesntTalk - an hour ago
    
    Everything we have witnessed that arises also passes away. Every living thing, every dead thing - even stars and planets - arise and pass away.
    I feel it’s the ultimate hubris to think we can cheat death.
    Moreover, why would you want immortality?
    Many books of fiction and poetry discuss the curse of immortality.
    Here are a few:
    The Immortal, Jorge Luis Borges (1947)
    A man discovers a source of immortality, but eternity eventually destroys the significance of individual experiences. When everything can happen infinitely, nothing feels particularly important.
    The Mortal Immortal — Mary Shelley (1833) - also wrote Frankenstein
    A man drinks an elixir and lives for centuries without substantially aging. He watches his wife grow old and die, and becomes increasingly alienated from humanity. Shelley focuses on loneliness and the psychological weight of endless time.
    All Men Are Mortal — Simone de Beauvoir (1946)
    An immortal man lives through centuries of history, relationships, and political upheaval. Gradually he discovers that even extraordinary achievements seem meaningless when time is unlimited.
    The Makropulos Affair — Karel Čapek (1922)
    A woman lives more than 300 years through an elixir. She retains her youth but becomes emotionally exhausted, cynical, and incapable of finding pleasure.
    —
    There are more. Sure, these are fiction. But use your imagination. Why would you want immortality, even if you could retain perfect health indefinitely?
    
    ribosometronome - 18 minutes ago
    
    Why would someone want to live 100 years? 80? 60? 40? 20? Were ultimately just saying we like living and would like to keep living until we decide we don’t want to anymore. The thought that people might like living longer than they get is pretty well supported by every dying person who doesn’t want to die rather than just some speculative fiction.
    
    snk - an hour ago
    
    Not everything; only 93% of humans have died, for example. Past != future.
    
    Nursie - 43 minutes ago
    
    Because one lifetime is not enough to experience everything the world has to offer.
    If one doesn't have to watch ones spouse, friends and family grow old and die, because it is available widely, that removes some of your objections.
    Personally I don't subscribe to the idea that things lose meaning in a longer life, I find it a 'just so' story of self comfort in the face of the inevitable.
    
    jojobas - an hour ago
    
    Well if one can live to the heat death of the universe I'll count it as prevented, not postponed, death.
    
    card_zero - an hour ago
    
    That is a really wanky, lazy, cliched, annoying trope - to a longevity advocate, of course. For the many people who inexplicably think death is friendly and wonderful, these tired old storylines are utterly insightful. (see also: Doctor Who, they did stories about immortality-seeking villains a few times.)
    
    card_zero - an hour ago
    
    Well, accidents. Inconveniently close supernovas. Something is likely to get you eventually, some few millennia later.
- shrubble - an hour ago
  
  All it would take would be one billionaire who invested in long term bonds, à la Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy…
- - 3 hours ago
  
  [deleted]
  - lilycarranza999 - 2 hours ago
    
    [dead]
- dyauspitr - 2 hours ago
  
  That’s a coping mechanism because we can’t change it.
  - hootz - 2 hours ago
    
    Wasn't death a requirement for us to reach this current stage of human evolution? I don't think it is a good idea to stop it entirely.
    
    jeremyjh - 2 hours ago
    
    Evolution of humans by natural selection is already over with - or at least proceeding at time scales irrelevant to our civilization.
    
    card_zero - an hour ago
    
    "Contrary to popular belief," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution
    I don't think it matters, mind you.
    
    snk - an hour ago
    
    If it doesn't matter then it is not evolution, right?
    
    card_zero - 30 minutes ago
    
    So it's things like: some people died because there was a famine and they didn't have lactose tolerance (and thus didn't have any cows, or they'd just eat the cows, a detail). Some people died due to having unnecessarily large and sturdy jaws in the era of cooked food. (Not sure how this would cause death, perhaps due to greater surface area for tooth trouble? It's always the teeth.) Then, their offspring - wait, I mean other people's offspring - are more adapted and less vulnerable.
    Well sure, we should become less vulnerable, including biologically. But there are better ways to accomplish this than having people killed.
    
    - 2 hours ago
    
    [deleted]
    
    bravoetch - an hour ago
    
    Not sure about death being required. It's more that life after reproductive success is not required.
    
    robwwilliams - 40 minutes ago
    
    …that longer life after reproductive exhaustion is not under selection.”
    
    idle_zealot - an hour ago
    
    Curing aging doesn't stop death entirely. There's still the attrition of living in the physical world. Some portion of the population will trip and break their necks every year.
- LoganDark - 2 hours ago
  
  Indeed; the biggest reason is surely cancer.
- lilycarranza999 - 2 hours ago
  
  [dead]
torben-friis - 2 hours ago

Eh, we might see some benefit to leaders having a reason to care about stuff 10+ years from now.
- Waterluvian - an hour ago
  
  I feel like AI has opened a door of plausibility to Black Mirror or Twilight Zone concepts more than any other novel technology in my lifetime.
  What if living 300 years meant the entire tempo of human living changes. That we all just slow right down because having control over our aging and when it happens. To be able to decide to extend your 20s… or not. To spend decades in your 30s. How would that change what’s important to us?
- axus - 2 hours ago
  
  That'll be the commoners' problem; they'll be planning out how to survive the next 300 years.
  - deadbabe - 2 hours ago
    
    They cannot survive the next 300 years unless we all survive the next 300 years. A dictator is motivated by having power over others, not being some lone survivalist fending for himself in nature.
EA-3167 - 2 hours ago

I’d be far more worried about this causing turbo cancer than immortality in dictators.
- King-Aaron - 2 hours ago
  
  It might be beneficial if it gives turbo cancer to the dictators, of course.
- bitwize - an hour ago
  
  It turns out that if you trigger all four Yamanaka factors—yeah, turbo cancer. But if you trigger only three of the four, you can trigger a reversion to the stem cell state without the increased cancer risk.
  - robwwilliams - an hour ago
    
    Dubious. Do you have a reference or two? In general biological systems are not this simple.
- deadbabe - 2 hours ago
  
  What if we cure cancer with AI very soon? Give it 10 years.
  - vibrio - 44 minutes ago
    
    Remind me of the chance some same AI kills us all before 10 years?
  - EA-3167 - 29 minutes ago
    
    Funny you mention that, I guess this is a new cult maxim for the faithful?
    https://fixvx.com/Kalshi/status/2109791302674235656?s=20
    Save us all from people like this.
yieldcrv - 3 hours ago

and the bourgeoisie, a temporary regulation would be needed in those areas of the world to separate the upper class from the capability of the rulers
in western nations where that’s not possible, I could see national bans, but one weak link globally and everyone wealthy will get their treatment there
- SOLAR_FIELDS - 3 hours ago
  
  The world of Altered Carbon seems more and more possible every day.
  - Bluestein - 2 hours ago
    
    My goodness, what a show that was.-
    
    clem - an hour ago
    
    I heard they based a book on it.
    
    walterbell - an hour ago
    
    Co-produced by David Ellison and James Vanderbilt.
- Loughla - 2 hours ago
  
  An undying trillionaire class definitely sounds like a possible future. Not an ideal one, mind you, but definitely in the realm of possibilities.
  I'm calling it now, Qatar will be the place that allows these treatments once they're a real thing.
  I have to imagine the Uber wealthy are pouring money into youthful longevity science.
  - selimthegrim - 2 hours ago
    
    The Island of Dr. Ellison
- lilycarranza999 - 2 hours ago
  
  [dead]
lilycarranza999 - 2 hours ago

[dead]

sgnelson - 2 hours ago

My nightmare is that we solve aging just in time for the Baby Boomers to live forever.

dang - 44 minutes ago

Please keep generational flamewar off HN.
plutomeetsyou - an hour ago

not if every other generation also lives long enough to become the baby boomers.
- 43 minutes ago

[deleted]
black_13 - 2 hours ago

[dead]

m463 - 3 hours ago

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sigh.

someothherguyy - 2 hours ago

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13634082/
- m463 - an hour ago
  
  awesome, thanks!
- lilycarranza999 - 2 hours ago
  
  [dead]
yieldcrv - 3 hours ago

I’m on a ton of lists and I still have tsa pre and global entry
- OJFord - 3 hours ago
  
  Interesting flex, is that a metric or an American tonne?
  - yieldcrv - 2 hours ago
    
    there’s enough context to guess