The iLabs Singularity Summit was held this past weekend in Milan, Italy - it's always good to see more of this sort of event happening on that side of the Atlantic. There was a strong focus on longevity science:

Biological ageing is a progressive, degenerative process. As a side-effect of the everyday metabolic activities, cells in our body are damaged: year after year, the cumulative effect of this micro-damages considerably diminishes the overall efficiency of the system, leading eventually to death. ... We die mainly because of ignorance: we do not know how to measure our health, we do not understand completely the side-effects of our therapies and we can't explain the complex interplay between mind and body.

Doing something about these technological and scientific inadequacies should be far higher on most people's to-do lists than it in fact is - we all age, we all suffer the degenerations caused by low-level biological damage. We should all be highly motivated to deal with the problem before it sucks away our ability to live, and then kills us. Alas, the present state of affairs is far from this ideal, and most people do not know or believe that the defeat of aging really is within reach. But it won't happen soon enough unless a great many more people work hard to make it happen.

Amongst the presenters at the summit was the familiar face of Aubrey de Grey, biomedical gerontologist, SENS Foundation cofounder, and outspoken advocate for the development of rejuvenation biotechnology. Here is a video interview made by David Orban and thoughtfully uploaded to YouTube: