Category Archives: Life Extension

We've already tacked three decades onto the average lifespan of an American, so what's wrong with adding another few decades?

A centenarian riding his bike in Long Beach, California (Reuters).

So far as we know, the last hundred years have been the most radical period of life extension in all of human history. At the turn of the twentieth century, life expectancy for Americans was just over 49 years; by 2010, that number had risen to 78.5 years, mostly on account of improved sanitation and basic medicine. But life extension doesn't always increase our well-being, especially when all that's being extended is decrepitude. There's a reason that Ponce de Leon went searching for the fountain of youth---if it were the fountain of prolonged dementia and arthritis he may not have bothered.

Over the past twenty years, biologists have begun to set their sights on the aging process itself, in part by paying close attention to species like the American Lobster, which, despite living as long as fifty years, doesn't seem to age much at all. Though some of this research has shown promise, it's not as though we're on the brink of developing a magical youth potion. Because aging is so biologically complex, encompassing hundreds of different processes, it's unlikely that any one technique will add decades of youth to our lives. Rather, the best we can hope for is a slow, incremental lengthening of our "youth-span," the alert and active period of our lives.

Not everyone is thrilled by the prospect of radical life extension. As funding for anti-aging research has exploded, bioethicists have expressed alarm, reasoningthat extreme longevity could have disastrous social effects. Some argue that longer life spans will mean stiffer competition for resources, or a wider gap between rich and poor. Others insist that the aging process is important because it gives death a kind of time release effect, which eases us into accepting it. These concerns are well founded. Life spans of several hundred years are bound to be socially disruptive in one way or another; if we're headed in that direction, it's best to start teasing out the difficulties now.

But there is another, deeper argument against life extension---the argument from evolution. Its proponents suggest that we ought to avoid tinkering with any human trait borne of natural selection. Doing so, they argue, could have unforeseen consequences, especially given that natural selection has such a sterling engineering track record. If our bodies grow old and die, the thinking goes, then there must be a good reason, even if we don't understand it yet. Nonsense, says Bennett Foddy, a philosopher (and flash game developer!) from Oxford, who has written extensively about the ethics of life extension. "We think about aging as being a natural human trait, and it is natural, but it's not something that was selected for because it was beneficial to us." Foddy told me. "There is this misconception that everything evolution provides is beneficial to individuals and that's not correct."

Foddy has thought long and hard about the various objections to life extension and, for the most part, has found them wanting. This is our conversation about those objections, and about the exciting new biology of aging.

Foddy: The reason I present it that way, is that there's always this background moral objection in enhancement debates, where a technology is perceived to be new, and by virtue of being new, is depicted as threatening or even strange. That goes for everything from genetic engineering to steroids to cloning and on and on. I think it's always worth contextualizing these things in terms of the normal. So with human cloning it's worth remembering that it's exactly the same as twinning. With steroids, it's worth remembering that in many ways it's not that different from training and exercise, and also that people have been taking testosterone since ancient times. I think this way you can kind of resist the idea that something is wrong just because it's strange.

When you're talking about medicines that help us live longer, it's important to realize how much we've already accomplished. In the last 150 years or so, we've doubled our life span from 40 to 80 years, and that's primarily through the use of things you can characterize as being medical science. In some cases it's clear that we're talking about medical enhancement---vaccines, for instance, or surgical hygiene and sterilization. And then more broadly there are other, non-medical things like the sanitation of the water supply and the pasteurization of milk and cheese. All of these things have saved an enormous amount of life.

It used to be that people would die of an infectious disease; they'd be struck down when they were very young or when they were older and their immune system was weak. Now almost nobody in the first world dies of infectious disease; we've basically managed to completely eradicate infectious disease through medical science. If, at the outset of this process, you asked people if we should develop technologies that would make us live until we're 80 on average instead of until we're 40, people might have expressed these same kind of misgivings that you hear today. They might have said, "Oh no that would be way too long, that would be unnatural, let's not do that."

So, in a way, we shouldn't view it as being extremely strange to develop these medicines, but in another sense we're at a new stage now, because now we're at the forefront of having medicines that actually address the aging process. And that's what I'm interested in talking about---the kinds of medicines that actually slow down the aging process, or at least some of the mechanisms of aging.

Can you explain how senescence, the biological process of aging, is unevenly distributed across species?

Foddy: There are different animals that are affected differently by various processes of aging. In my paper I go into the case of the American Lobster, which lives about as long as a human being. When you dissect one of these lobsters at the end of its life, its body doesn't show much in the way of weakening or wasting like you see in a human body of advanced age. That suggests that aging can evolve differently in different species. Lobsters seem to have evolved an adaptation against the cellular lifespan. There's this phenomenon where the DNA in our cells basically unravel after they've divided a certain amount of times, but lobsters have this enzyme that helps them replenish their telomeres---the caps that hold DNA together.

That's one of the reasons why lobsters don't seem to undergo aging in the same way that we do. Other species give off an antioxidant chemical in their bodies that prevent these oxidizing free radicals in our bodies from breaking us down. That's why doctor's recommend that you have a certain amount of antioxidants---some species are really good at producing those naturally.

There is this idea that when you're evolving you make certain trade-offs. Lobsters and clams don't really move around a lot; their bodies move and grow very slowly and one of the upsides of that is that they've been able to invest their evolutionary chips, so to speak, in resisting the aging process. Human beings, on the other hand, have to move around quite a lot. We have giant brains and we have to be able to run away from saber tooth tigers. As a result we have bodies that burn a lot of calories, and so that's where our chips are invested. It's just a difference in our evolutionary environment and that's why we've evolved to live and die the way we do. But it could have easily not turned out that way---that's the point I really want to make.

What are the current biological limits on our human life span, or our human "youth span," as you call it---the time that we're able to live as young, vibrant, reproducing individuals?

Foddy: The sky is sort of the limit there. There won't be a magic pill that gives us infinite youth, but over time there will probably be different technologies that allow you a few extra years of youth. We think of aging as being a unitary thing, but it's made up of hundreds of different processes. So, one of the different things we think about, for example, is dementia, the state where your brain sort of wastes away. Now, if we discover a way of reversing that process, or slowing that process, that would be one dimension where we no longer age, where our minds will stay youthful for longer. It's also possible that we might be able to find a way of stopping people's muscles from wasting away as they get older.

Nothing is going to be super dramatic, but there will be a point where you'll look back a hundred years and notice that people used to get really kind of feeble and after awhile they weren't capable of really thinking or processing information anymore, and they had to go into a home and they had to be looked after and nursed for a time. And that will seem very old-fashioned and very barbaric, but I very much doubt it will happen at a moment in time where we suddenly realize that some magic pill has exponentially extended our youth. Part of that's because we're not exactly clear what aging is. We've identified a whole range of processes, but there ere still a whole lot of arguments in the scientific community about what is really responsible for aging, and which of the processes are subsidiary to other processes.

Have we glimpsed, even theoretically, ways that we might add to that youth-span. What are the bleeding edge technologies that might allow us to overcome aging?

Foddy: I'm not a scientist, so I don't want to weigh in too heavily on somebody's body of research. We've seen promising results looking at the lobsters and we've seen promising results with antioxidants, even aspirin, but as I said these things are going to be incremental. You meet a lot of people in the scientific community that are true believers and they're expecting a kind of a radical thing. And it's not as though we never have a radical thing in medicine, but what we have more frequently is incremental advances.

Cancer is a great example of the kind of incremental progress I'm talking about. In 1970, your odds of surviving 5 years after you've were diagnosed with certain kinds of cancer were slim; those chances have increased substantially. But we still react to the idea of getting cancer as though it were 1970 because we don't really process incremental changes. Like with chemotherapy, they just change out one or two drugs every year based on trials that show that the new drug is 2 percent more effective than the previous drug. That's constantly going on, but it really isn't announced. Instead, we get the occasional story in the news about a miracle cure for cancer, and it always turns out not to be as good as they had hoped and everyone begins to get disillusioned about science and the value of medical progress. But when you run the comparisons across decades, you see something much more dramatic.

You give an interesting account of how the aging process evolved in humans. You argue that aging is not the result of an optimizing process, but that instead it's a byproduct of an optimizing process. Can you explain why that difference is so important?

Foddy: I should say, first of all, that this is not original to me; this is very well established in evolutionary biology. We have a number of genetic traits that we developed because they were advantageous from the perspective of natural selection---that is, they helped us to survive and reproduce. People that had the gene for that trait had the ability to reproduce more than people that didn't have it. It's easy to imagine that every gene that we have is selected because it gave a positive advantage in this way, but it turns out there are trade-offs. A number of the processes of aging seem to have arisen because our bodies were not doing enough maintenance, because they were busy doing something else. The misconception that people often have is that any trade-off that we have is going to be directly beneficial, directly advantageous. But that's not right.

The second thing to say is that aging usually happens to an organism after it reaches menopause. Things that happen after menopause are much less interesting in terms of evolution, because they have much less of an effect. If I've already reached the age where I can't reproduce, then aging that takes effect at this point in my life is not going to affect whether or not I reproduce. The game is sort of already over for me. As a result, natural selection doesn't tend to weed out genes that take effect after you've reached the age of menopause. So, there is this idea that over time you can amass genes in your genome that have nothing to do with survival or not surviving, because they only activate after you reach a certain age. So, over time, some of these are going to be good genes and some of them are going to be bad. It's going to be this kind of mix, but it's certainly not going to be the case that they're on balance beneficial. We've got hundreds or thousands of genes that don't start to harm us until we reach old age, and those genes are responsible for a lot of what actually constitutes aging. So, in this sense, we think about aging as being a natural human activity or a human trait---and it is natural, but it's not something that was selected because it was beneficial to us. There is this misconception that everything evolution provides has to be beneficial to individuals and that's not correct. "There is this misconception that everything evolution provides has to be beneficial to individuals and that's not correct."

One defense of aging that your paper takes quite seriously is the argument from evolution, which was first put forth by Frances Fukuyama. Fukuyama claims that we should resist the temptation to tinker with any characteristic that we have been given through the process of natural selection. He argues that evolution can be relied upon to produce good results and that we ought not to mess with the fruit of its processes. What's wrong with this view?

Foddy: Fukuyama has this idea that evolution is very complicated, which is true. We don't always understand why we've evolved to be a certain way. Sometimes it looks like something is useful, but in fact it's performing some kind of role that we don't know much about. Fukuyama is also correct that sometimes we interfere with complicated biological systems without really understanding what the effects will be, and that then we wind up with some unwanted effect. That's all true.

The thing that I disagree with him about is his presumption that if we have a trait that's evolved, that it must be beneficial to us in some way, and that we have some good reason for allowing that trait stick around. Now he's not talking strictly about aging; his book discusses all kinds of intervention on the human organism. But, when it comes to aging, his argument can't even succeed on its own merits, because we know for a fact that aging is not the sort of thing that is produced by natural selection in the kind of positive way that he is talking about. He says it's not always easy to do nature one better, but that's not what we're doing when we're combating aging. We're not trying to do nature one better, because nature doesn't care that we grow old and die. This is neglect, evolutionary neglect. We shouldn't think about it as interfering with the sort of complex ecological balance in the way that he's worried about.

Now that's not to say that our current mode of life extension is ideal. Some of the biggest strains on our resources stem from the fact that populations are getting older as birthrate's go down, especially in the first world. Aging societies are spending more and more on nursing, and so I think that it makes sense to pursue a youth-extending medicine that would diminish the number of years that we have to spend in nursing homes. You could imagine us living more like the lobster, where we still live to be about 80-85, but we're alert and active until we drop dead. In that scenario we wouldn't have this giant burden where the state has to support and pay to nurse people that are unable to look after themselves anymore.

Now, it has to be said that the story of medicine and medical progress in the past 50 years has not been heading that way. If anything, we're extending the number of years that we spend needing nursing. We've gotten good at keeping people alive once they're fairly decrepit. And that sort of guarantees that you have the maximum drain on resources, while also producing the kind of minimum amount of human benefit. You get to be 90 years old and your hip goes out, and we give you a massively expensive hip replacement, but we don't do things to prevent your body from wasting away and becoming corroded when you're 20, 30 or 40.

There's this great Greek myth, the myth of Tithonus, that always comes to mind. Tithonus was a mortal who was in love with Eos, the goddess of the dawn. Eos didn't want Tithonus to grow old and die, so she went to Zeus to ask for eternal life, which was granted. But, she forgot to ask for eternal youth, and so Tithonus just gets older and older and more decrepit, and eventually he can't really move, and then finally he turns into a grasshopper in the end. That's sort of the course that we're on with our current approach to medicine and life extension.

Some ethicists have pointed out that death is one of the major forces for equality in the world, and that welfare disparities will be worsened if some people can afford to postpone old age, or avoid it altogether, while others are unable to. What do you say to them?

Foddy: I think that's right. I mean there are concerns whenever we develop any kind of medicine or any kind of technology---the concern that these things are going to widen welfare gaps. The story of industrialization is that the people who could afford the cars and machines and factories in Western countries were able to produce a lot more and generate a lot more wealth than people in poorer agrarian economies. That's a serious issue. It's probably true that if people in the first world were, through some sort of medical intervention, able to live to be 200 years old and people in Bangladesh were still dying at a relatively young age, that would tend to widen the distance in personal wealth.

And look this has already happened. It's already unfair that I will on average live to be 80 and yet, if I were born before some arbitrary date, or in some other place, I would live much less longer. Those things are unfair and it's worth worrying about them, but I don't think the correct response is to hold off on the science. It's better if everybody can eventually get this medicine, because living a long time is not a positional good, it's an absolute good. It would be great if everybody could live to be 150, because that would benefit every single person. It's not a good that benefits you only if other people are worse off. When you have goods like that you should try to develop them and then you should worry separately about making sure that they get delivered to people in poorer areas, whether it's through government aid or massive production.

Another objection to the elimination of aging is this idea that the aging process makes an elderly person's death less painful for the survivors around her, because it gradually forces people to stop relying on her, and forces her to gradually remove herself from society. You call this the argument from psycho-social history.

Foddy: This is Leon Kass' argument. He thinks aging is just fantastic for this reason because it helps us to let go of somebody. And of course it's true that when people grow old, they become less useful to society, and more socially difficult, which places burdens on people. And in a lot of cases we respond to this by cutting them out of our lives, essentially. People get older, they move into a nursing home, and we see them less and less, and then when they finally die everyone's like, "well it was expected." Advanced age sort of helps us prepare emotionally for letting go of people, but it seems to me that it's not good for the person who gets old.

Now, what would the world be like if people dropped dead in good health when they reach a certain age? It would be very sad, but on the upside the person would've had 20 or 30 years of additional integration into society and we would've been able to spend more time with them. I've got to say that I would've enjoyed my grandmother's presence a lot more if she'd been able to run around and to play and work and be part of society in her extremely advanced age.

Nick Bostrom has said that people have fallen victim to a kind of Stockholm syndrome when it comes to aging. The idea being that because aging has always been an insurmountable obstacle for humanity, that we have dignified it more than it deserves, that we contort ourselves logically and rhetorically to defend it precisely because it is so inescapable. Does that sound right to you?

Foddy: Yes, I think that's right, although Nick draws conclusions that are a bit more extreme than I would tend to draw. I think that we do have a tendency to kind of rationalize things that we don't think we can do anything about. This is a perfectly healthy attitude if you really can't do anything about the aging process---it's better to accept it and kind of talk about it as being a natural part of life, not something to rail against or feel bad about. It's something that everybody goes through. Now if it did so happen that we could discover a medicine that completely prevents that process from taking place, we would have to re-evaluate at that stage and realize that we've done some emotional rationalization here and the conditions for it no longer apply. We no longer need to comfort ourselves with the inevitability of death if it's not actually inevitable.

Having said that, death is, in fact, inevitable. Even if we solve every medical problem, you still have a 1 in 1,000 chance of dying every year by some sort of accident. So, on those odds you could probably expect to live to be about 1,000. I don't think it's ever going to be the case that we will live forever. It's not even going to be 1,000. We're probably talking about living to be 120 or 150 or somewhere around there, but to me the idea that we have to accept living to 80 rather than 120 is bizarre given that it's not so long ago that we lived to 40.

The rest is here:

Radical Life Extension Is Already Here, But We're Doing it ...

Private space technology company Orbital ATK sued the Pentagons Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) last Tuesday over plans to give a rival firm a contract to build satellite-repairing robots for a government-funded mission.

The Virginia-based company filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, asking court to halt DARPAs work on the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) mission, which would promote and develop robotic satellite repair technology.

DARPA chose rocket manufacturer Space Systems Loral (SSL), which is a subsidiary of Canadas MDA Corp., to award a $15 million contract for building robots for repairing government and commercial satellites.

It clearly demonstrates the success of our strategy to bring the benefits of our commercial business to a broader audience and to grow our business with U.S. government work, Howard Lance, CEO of SSL MDA Holdings, said in a statement last Thursday.

According to Jared Adams, DARPAs chief of media relations, the RSGS public-private effort is a first for DARPA in the space-servicing domain, and DARPAs selection of SSL has been submitted for review by the Defense Departments Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

In the lawsuit, Orbital ATK argued that DARPA intends to give away this technology to a foreign-owned company for that companys sole commercial use. In addition, Orbital ATK said RSGS would waste hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to develop robotic satellite servicing technology for which DARPA has admitted there is no present U.S. government need and that NASA and the U.S. private sector specifically the plaintiffs are already developing.

On the other hand, DARPA says RSGS would lower the risks and costs of operating in orbit.

Servicing on orbit could provide significant cost savings compared to current practices and a major advantage to the security of both commercial and Government space assets, Gordon Roesler, DARPAs program manager for RSGS, said in a statement last Thursday.

RSGS, Orbital ATK argues, directly competes with Orbital ATKs Mission Extension Vehicle, which is in development and provides life extension services to satellites. The company argues this violates the 2010 National Space Policy, which says that the government must refrain from conducting United States government activities that preclude, discourage, or compete with U.S. commercial space activities.

Currently, the Mission Extension Vehicle is backed by at least $200 million from investors, and Orbital ATK had set up a production facility in Northern Virginia. The company planned to launch the Mission Extension Vehicle next year.

In the past, Orbital ATK has worked with the U.S. government and NASA on various space projects. On Monday, the company announced that the U.S. Air Force awarded it a contract to provide support services for a multipurpose satellite.

This isnt the first time DARPA was asked to stop RSGS. Two weeks ago, three Republican members of Congress wrote a letter to the Pentagon saying RSGS violates the National Space Policy because its competing with a private company.

We urge you to promptly review this program to ensure its compliance with the 2010 National Space Policy, the letter to DARPA Acting Director Steven Walker said. As Acting Director, you should stop any further action on RSGS until the review is completed.

Walker replied saying that the commercial systems under development would not be as capable as RSGS, and he reviewed the mission, saying that it complied with the National Space Policy.

DARPA also said that a NASA satellite repair program called Restore-L does not have the same degree of autonomous control as RSGS. Restore-L was also awarded to Space Systems Loral and is planned to launch by 2020.

Photos via Flickr / NASA Johnson

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Orbital ATK Sues DARPA Over Satellite-Repairing Robots | Inverse - Inverse

Andrew Weil is Americas best-known revolutionary. You know him as a doctor a pioneer in what he calls Integrative Medicine who gets around in the very best media circles. Like the cover of Time Magazine, where he looks like a jolly Santa, with his bald head, big grin and a white beard just long enough to make you think he may someday play in ZZ Top. Hes a very reassuring guest on talk shows, where he speaks in praise of common sense and treatments that work, whatever their source. But dont be fooled Andrew Weil is a bomb-thrower.

Check out the book on Amazon here.

Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being is a bomb that may come as a shock to Boomers who tend to believe that life started with them and cannot go on without them and a total surprise for Millennials. Its newsflash: We all will die. There is no fountain of youth, no magic elixir that extends life. In 2002, when Weil turned sixty, he noted what that means: Sixty is about the time that organs of the body begin to fail, when the first signs of age-related disease begin to appear.

Can aging be reversed? No. But here comes the second bomb Dr.Weil throws in these pages and from his point-of-view, its pure good news: You can age gracefully. And if you are smart and careful and active and lucky, you will live as long and as well as possible, then have a rapid decline at the end of life. That is, youre healthy and vital right into your 80s and 90s, and then you get sick and die quickly, with your dignity and your wits intact. The goal, he reminds us, is compression of morbidity, not life extension.

How does he know? Well, hes studied widely. And hes seen his own mother who went toAntarctica at89 die at the end of a happy day when she was 93. [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]

That personal story is welcome because its a stark contrast to the rest of the book, which is unusually technical for Dr. Weil. But youll want to slog through it. First, because it is your life a subject of plausible interest to you hes talking about.Second, because the science is in support of some very blunt statements about how to live and eat and medicate.

Among the new ideas I encountered in these pages:

Vitamins C and E and green tea extract block and perhaps undo some of the skin damage caused by the suns ultraviolet rays.

Those who are somewhat overweight in middle age may enjoy a healthier and longer old age than those who are not it is better to be fit and fat than lean and not fit.

Buy oils in small quantities.

Avoid all products containing high-fructose corn syrup.

The least processed tea is white tea from China. To remove most caffeine from tea, steep the tea in hot water for 30 seconds, then use the tea leaves (or bag) in your cup or pot. [To buy white tea leaves from Amazon, click here. For white tea bags, click here.]

Take Vitamin E daily it offers the best antioxidant protection against common age-related diseases. [To buy Vitamin E from Amazon, click here.]

Take 200 milligrams of Vitamin C a day your body cant easily absorb more. [To buy Vitamin C from Amazon, click here]

If you are taking a statin, you should also take 60 milligrams a day of CoQ10. [To buy COQ10 from Amazon, click here.]

Turmeric may help prevent Alzheimers disease. [To read about Turmeric on Head Butler and buy it from Amazon, click here.]

DHEA decreases abdominal fat in elderly men and women. [To buy DHEA from Amazon, click here.]

Theres much more. And then theres this: The magnificence of autumn foliage is the ripe period of the year, before the sleep of winter.

____

This article originally appeared on The Head Butler

Photo credit: Getty Images

Jesse Kornbluth is is a New York-based writer and editor of HeadButler.com, a cultural concierge site he launched in 2004. As a magazine journalist, he has been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, New York and Architectural Digest. As an author, his books include Airborne: The Triumph and Struggle of Michael Jordan; Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milken and Pre-Pop Warhol. As a screenwriter, he has written for Robert De Niro, Paul Newman and PBS. On the Web, he co-founded Bookreporter.com. From 1997 to 2002, he was Editorial Director of America Online.

Original post:

My Mother is 100. She Does't Need Andrew Weil's 'Healthy Aging' You do - The Good Men Project

Aging Hand.Max Pixel/Max Pixel

Right now, the best that humans could hope for in terms of their lifespan is to reach the age of 100 or perhaps even a few years beyond that. According to the Gompertz mortality law, which is basically a model to calculate the mortality of humans, this only makes sense because death depends on certain factors that cant be changed. A team of researchers at the Gero biotech firm recently published their study, which essentially challenged this misconception.

Putting it simply, Gompertz law uses whats called the Strehler-Mildvan (SM) correlation in order to explain mortality, which is basically the sum of two factors that will inevitably increase on an exponential level as people age, Futurism reports. The team at Gero looked into this correlation and found that it had no factual basis despite the fact that it has practically been accepted for over five decades.

This concept was popularized back in the 60s when it was published in the journal Science. It really put scientists who wanted to extend human life in a bind as well because the SM correlation suggests that trying to prolong life while young will have the effect of actually shortening lifespan. According to the study that the Gero team published, this is simply not the case.

Titled Strehler-Mildvan correlation is a degenerate manifold of Gompertz fit, the study basically argues that the conclusion derived from the SM correlation has no actual basis in biology. In a press release, the teams public face Peter Fedichev noted how this study will impact research into extending human life.

Elimination of SM correlation from theories of aging is good news, because if it was not just negative correlation between Gompertz parameters, but the real dependence, it would have banned optimal anti-aging interventions and limited human possibilities to life extension, Fedichev said.

Basically, scientists are now free to research the ways to increase human lifespan. In fact, they could potentially extend it as much as they want.

Human Life Could Be Extended Indefinitely, Study Suggests

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Human Life Could Be Extended Indefinitely, Study Suggests - EconoTimes

Layer 8 is written by Michael Cooney, an online news editor with Network World.

DARPA is going to have to contend with an Earth-bound problem if it is to get its plan to service satellites in geosynchronous orbit into space.

The agency this week said it had picked Space Systems Loral (SSL) as its commercial partner to develop technologies under its Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program that would enable cooperative inspection and servicing of satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), more than 20,000 miles above the Earth, and demonstrate those technologies on orbit.

+More on Network World: How to catch a 400lb drone traveling at full speed+

But SSL competitor Orbital ATF promptly filed a lawsuit looking to stop the award.

Inside Defense.com reported that according to the complaintfiled in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Orbital ATK is seeking a permanent injunction that would prohibit further action on DARPA's Robotic Servicing of Geospatial Satellites program as well as a judgment that the project violates the National Space Policy and the Administrative Procedure Act. Orbital ATK says in its lawsuit that it has long worked on in-space satellite servicing. It is developing the Mission Extension Vehicle, which it describes as a "satellite life extension service for GEO satellites.

According to the Orbital website the MEV docks with customers existing satellites providing the propulsion and attitude control needed to extend their lives. The MEV is capable of docking with virtually all-geosynchronous satellites with minimal interruption to operations. It will let satellite operators significantly extend satellite mission life, activate new markets, drive asset value and protect their franchises. Orbital subsidiary Space Logistics LLC delivers life extension services that are flexible, scalable, capital-efficient and low-risk.

In a release, today (Feb. 9) DARPA said RSGS will demonstrate a suite of capabilities critical to national security and not currently available or anticipated to be offered commercially in the near term, including ultra-close inspection, repair of mechanical anomalies, and installation of technical packages on the exterior of US satellites, all of which require highly dexterous robotic arms. DARPA has already designed and created the required robotic arms.

Under the RSGS program, a DARPA-developed modular toolkit (the robotic payload), including hardware and software, would be joined to a privately developed spacecraft to create a commercially operated robotic servicing vehicle that could make house calls in space, DARPA stated.

DARPA said its role will be to contribute the robotics technology, expertise, and a government-provided launch while SSL would contribute the satellite to carry the robotic payload, integration of the payload onto it and the RSV to the launch vehicle, and the mission operations center and staff.

Since there are roughly four times as many commercial satellites in GEO as Government satellites, DARPA elected to find a commercial partner capable of servicing both in order to lower the cost of servicing to the Government and commercial entities and collect a broader range of research data. This partnership approach will enable the fastest deployment of RSGS capability, DARPA wrote.

DARPA continued: After a successful on-orbit demonstration of the robotic servicing vehicle, SSL would own and operate the vehicle and make cooperative servicing available to both military and commercial GEO satellite owners on a fee-for-service basis. In exchange for providing government property to SSL, the government will obtain reduced priced servicing of its satellites and access to commercial satellite servicing data throughout the operational life of the RSV.

Government-developed RSGS technologies would not become the exclusive property of DARPAs commercial partner but would be shared with other qualified and interested U.S. space companies. Qualified companies would be able to obtain and license the technology through cooperative research and development agreements.

+More on Network World: DARPA wants to give dead, in-orbit satellites new life+

In December, DARPA proposed consortium of industry players that will research, develop, and publish standards for safe commercial robotic servicing operations in Earths orbit. Specifically, DARPA said it wants to create the Consortium for Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations or CONFERS that looks to establish a forum that would use best practices from government and industry to research, develop and publish non-binding, consensus-derived technical and safety standards for on-orbit servicing operations. In doing so, the program would provide a clear technical basis for definitions and expectations of responsible behavior in outer space. In the end the ultimate goal is to provide the technical foundation to shape safe and responsible commercial space operations to preserve the safety of the global commons of space, DARPA stated.

Recent technological advances have made the longstanding dream of on-orbit robotic servicing of satellites a near-term possibility. The potential advantages of that unprecedented capability are enormous. Instead of designing their satellites to accommodate the harsh reality that, once launched, their investments could never be repaired or upgraded, satellite owners could use robotic vehicles to physically inspect, assist, and modify their on-orbit assets. That could significantly lower construction and deployment costs while dramatically extending satellite utility, resilience, and reliability, DARPA stated. But these efforts all face a major roadblock: the lack of clear, widely accepted technical and safety standards for responsible performance of on-orbit activities involving commercial satellites, including rendezvous and proximity operations that dont involve physical contact with satellites and robotic servicing operations that would. Without these standards, the long-term sustainability of outer space operations is potentially at risk.

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Excerpt from:

DARPA hits snag in GEO satellite service plan - Network World

The Strehler-Mildvan Correlation

The scientific team of biotech company Gero recently published a study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology that debunks a long-held misconception regarding two parameters of the Gompertz mortality law a mortality modelthat represents human death as the sumof two components that exponentially increases with age. The Gero team studied whats called the Strehler-Mildvan (SM) correlation and found no real biological reasoning behind it, despite having been held true for more than a half a century now.

The SM correlation, derived from the Strehler-Mildvan general theory of aging and mortality, is a mechanism-based explanation of Gompertz law. Specifically, the SM correlation uses two Gompertz coefficients called the Mortality Rate Doubling Time (MRDT) and Initial Mortality Rate (IMR). Popularized in the 1960s in a paper published in Science, the SM correlation suggests that reducing mortality rate through any intervention at a young age could lower the MRDT, thus accelerating aging. As such, the hypothesis disrupts the development of any anti-aging therapy, effectively making optimal aging treatments impossible.

The Gero team, however, realized that the SM correlation is a flawed assumption. Instead of using machine learning techniques for anti-aging therapy design, the researchers relied on an evidence-based science approach. Peter Fedichev and his team tried to determine the physical processes behind the SM correlation. In doing so, they realized the fundamental discrepancy between analytical considerations and the possibility of SM correlation. We worked through the entire life histories of thousands of C. elegans that were genetically identical, and the results showed that this correlation was indeed a pure fitting artifact, Fedichev saidin a press release.

Other studieshave questioned the validity of the SM correlation, but in their published study, Fedichev and his team were able to show how the SM correlation arises naturally as a degenerate manifold of Gompertz fit. This suggests that, instead of understanding SM correlation as a biological fact, it is really an artifactual property of the fit.

This discovery is particularly relevant now as more and more scientists are coming to the conclusion that aging is a disease and, as such, could be treated. They are working hard to find ways to extend human life, and many of theseanti-aging studies are yielding curious developments.

Elimination of SM correlation from theories of aging is good news, because if it was not just negative correlation between Gompertz parameters, but the real dependence, it would have banned optimal anti-aging interventions and limited human possibilities to life extension, Fedichev explained. In order words,human life extension has no definitive limit.

Read the original:

There is No Limit to Human Life Extension - Futurism

WESLACO, Texas - Students at Weslaco High School are working to make sure their school zone is safe.

Art students re-striped the crosswalk on Border Avenue near Panther Drive.

It's part of the Texas A&M Agri-Life Extension's Working on Wellness Project in Hidalgo County.

The city of Weslaco is working to make its streets more walkable. But with the help of students, they've added a little twist.

Andrea Valdez - Texas A&M Agri-Life Extension, "Our students at Weslaco High School designed this crosswalk with the Panther, or if you want to call them Wildcat also, paw prints down the side. So they had designed it and now they're painting it so they can take ownership. It's really theirs. They can promote it to their friends and say hey walk on the crosswalk. I designed it and I helped paint it."

Texas A&M Agri-Life Extension says residents can be on the lookout for more new crosswalks and bike lanes throughout the city to promote health and fitness.

Excerpt from:

Weslaco ISD Students Re-Stripe Crosswalk to Promote School Zone Safety - RGVProud

Although many people are aware of the damaging effects to the eyes caused by the sun's ultraviolet rays, not everyone realizes the danger of chronic exposure to blue light emitted by electronic devices. While sunlight consists of approximately 25-30 percent blue light, computer monitors and other electronic device screens (particularly light-emitting diodes, or LEDS) emit about 35 percentblue light. Additionally, modern lighting involves ever-greater use of LEDs as well as compact fluorescent lamps that emit about 25 percent blue light. According to an article appearing in theReview of Optometry, ". . . our exposure to blue light is everywhere and only increasing."

As reported in Life Extension Magazine, blue light induces photochemical stress that damages cells in the eyes' retina which can lead to their destruction. The retina is a nerve cell layer in the back of the eye that contains neurons known as photoreceptors (rods and cones) that sense light, resulting in impulses that are transmitted via the optic nerve to the brain.

The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a layer of pigmented cells next to and outside of the retina that nourishes retinal nerve tissue and transports molecules into the retina and out of it. The RPE contains a high amount of the carotenoids lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin. These pigments have been characterized as forming "a kind of biological sunglasses that absorb blue light."

According to Michael A. Smith, M.D., senior health scientist with Life Extension, of all the carotenoids that are absorbed by the human body, only lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin accumulate in the macula, an area at the center of the retina responsible for central vision.

"In addition to their blue-light filtering property, these pigments have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, all of which help protect againstage-related macular degeneration(AMD), a leading cause of vision loss in older men and women," says Dr. Smith. "Macular pigment density is considered to be a significant indicator of retinal health."

A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial reported inBioMed Research Internationalfound an increase in macular pigment optical density and contrast sensitivity among those who received lutein and zeaxanthin for two years.Another study of early AMD patients found increases in macular pigment after three years of supplementation with lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin.These and other trials have demonstrated that supplementation with the three carotenoids can improve macular pigment optimal density, thereby helping to protect the retina. In fact, a meta-analysis of 20 randomized trials including a total of 938 AMD patients and 826 subjects without the disease concluded that supplementation with lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin improved macular pigment optical density in both AMD patients and healthy subjects.

Findings from the original Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) resulted in the widespread recommendation of vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc with copper, and beta carotene supplementation to reduce the development of advanced age-related macular degeneration. However, in AREDS-2, the replacement of beta carotene with lutein and zeaxanthin was associated with greater protection against the progression to late AMD than that conferred by the original AREDS formula.

While one can't avoid exposure to blue light these days, protecting oneself may be as simple as adding lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin to one's supplemental regimen. Although these nutrients occur in foods like spinach, kale and, in the case of meso-zeaxanthin, certain fish, nutritional supplements are now available that make it easy to obtain optimal amounts of these importantcarotenoidson a daily basis.

"The naturally occurring retinal antioxidants, such as lutein and zeaxanthin, can't be regenerated fast enough to keep pace with the amount of damaging blue-light saturating the immediate environment," commented Dr. Smith. "We are all quickly becoming lutein deficient. And since the blue light-emitting devices aren't going anywhere, the risk of macular degeneration is rising. Macular pigment density must be preserved with daily lutein and zeaxanthin supplementation."

For more information about the dangers of blue light and daily lutein and zeaxanthin supplementation visit http://www.lifeextension.com.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/if-you-use-a-computer-or-smartphone-read-this-300403256.html

SOURCE Life Extension

http://www.lifeextension.com

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If you use a computer or smartphone, read this - PR Newswire (press release)

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The Royal Navy warship HMS Argyll has set sail again following a 20-month refit at its Devonport dockyard base.

The Type 23 frigate sailed with the very latest Royal Navy sensors and equipment newly fitted, in particular the new Sea Ceptor air-defence missile system, for which she will lead the first acceptance trials for the class of warship in the Navy later in the year.

Her crew, led by the captain Commander Toby Shaughnessy, has been working hard with the MOD's industrial partner Babcock, who delivered the refit to get her ready for sea.

Recently completing the last of her pre-sailing machinery trials and a busy period of safety drills, the 171-man crew is delighted to be back at sea.

Commander Shaughnessy said: "It is always extremely challenging to re-generate our ships following their routine periodical refits.

"They are complicated machines and the vast array of equipment needs close attention when we turn them on again after such a long period in dry dock.

"I am very proud of the determination and professionalism of my crew throughout this busy period in getting the ship ready to return to sea.

"We look forward to rejoining the fleet and contributing to its global operations once again."

HMS Argyll will consolidate her safety drills at sea before a short period of post-refit trials.

She will return to full operations with her sister Devonport ships thereafter.

Babcock warship director, Mike Whalley, said: "We are delighted to play our part in returning HMS Argyll to sea in a significantly improved material state and with enhanced capability.

"This has been the most complex Type 23 upkeep ever undertaken in Devonport and the first UK warship class to have its missile system changed mid -life since the 1970s.

"Key learning gained throughout the project will enhance our ability as class lead to life extend the rest of the class.''

A Royal Navy spokesman said the latest launch of HMS Argyll represents the culmination of more than 600,000 man hours of work at the Babcock Frigate Support Centre in Devonport Royal Dockyard.

They noted that this is Babcock's completion of the first Type 23 'life-extension' upkeep, designed to extend the ship's operational life from 18 to 35 years: maintaining, updating and upgrading capability for the 21st century.

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Plymouth warship HMS Argyll sets sail again after 20-month refit - Plymouth Herald

The next meeting of Clone Club is scheduled for Saturday, June 10 at 10/9c.

Thats whenOrphan Black will return for its fifth and final season, BBC America announced Tuesday.

VIDEOSTatiana Maslany Talks Emmy Prep and (Maybe) New Orphan Black Clones

Upcoming episodes of the Tatiana Maslany-led sci-fi series will explore prolongevity and life extension, which is a very interesting and topical science right now, co-showrunner Graeme Manson told TVLine at last years Emmys. (At that same event, Maslany took home her first Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series.)

Also, as Manson previewed at San Diego Comic-Con, the fifth seasons revelation is that the founder of Neolution [P.T. Westmoreland] is somehow still alive That is part of the big mystery for next year.

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Read more from the original source:

'Orphan Black' Final Season Premiere Date Set at BBC America - Yahoo TV (blog)