Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Long Life Family Study (Heinlein's 'Howard Families') Now Recruiting
The National Institute for Aging (NIA) is now recruiting families for its Long Life Family Study. The requirements: you must be a member of a family with at least two living members aged 80 years or older, with living children living nearby.
"Other studies have indicated that longevity tends to run in families," said NIA director Richard Hodes. "The planned LFFS is designed to determine the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to longevity and the ability to escape diseases normally associated with aging such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, stroke and heart disease."
The project is expected to run five years and cost an estimated $18 milion; three recruitment sites will be located in the U.S. (NYC, Pittsburg and Boston) and one in Denmark.
The NIA's project lacks only a forward-looking element to its program to live up to a famous science-fictional quest for long life. In his 1941 novel Methuselah's Children, Robert Heinlein wrote about a group he called the Howard Families, a private group funded by a man who made millions but died at an early age.
On March 17, 1874, Ira Johnson, medical student, sat in the law offices of Deems, Wingate, Alden, & Deems and listened to an unusual proposition. At last he interrupted the senior partner. "Just a moment! Do I understand that you are trying to hire me to marry one of these women?"
Several other real-life advances have paralleled the course of Heinlein's novel: see HetaCool - Your Personal Antifreeze? and Young Blood Found To Revive Aging Muscles. Thanks to an alert reader who found this story on livescience. If you have the necessary qualifications, sign up for possible immortality (for your descendants, that is) here.
"The first offspring resulting from unions assisted by the Howard Foundation were born in 1875.
They aroused no comment, for they were in no way remarkable. The Foundation was an openly chartered non-profit corporation--"
The lawyer looked shocked. "Please, Mr. Johnson. Not at all"
"Well, it certainly sounded like it."
"No, no, such a contract would be void, against public policy. We are simply informing you, as administrators of a trust, that should it come about that you do marry one of the young ladies on this list it would then be our pleasant duty to endow each child of such a union according to the scale here set forth.
Ira Johnson scowled and shuffled his feet. "What's it all about? Why?"
"That is the business of the Foundation. One might put it that we approve of your grandparents..."
He felt no affection for his grandparents. A tight-fisted foursome - if any one of them had had the
grace to die at a reasonable age he would not now be worried about money enough to finish medical
school...
The lawyer shut off further discussion and young Johnson accepted gracelessly a list of young women, all strangers, with the intention of tearing it up the moment he was outside the office. Instead, that night he wrote seven drafts before he found the right words in which to start cooling off the relation between himself and his girl back home. He was glad that he had never actually popped the question to her - it would have been deucedly awkward.
When he did marry (from the list) it seemed a curious but not too remarkable coincidence that his wife as well as himself had four living, healthy, active grandparents.
(Read more about Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/12/2006)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Medical ")
'Droplet' Battery Microscale Power Pack
'...a power pack the size of a pea.' - Alfred Bester, 1956.
Who Needs Asimov's 'Proteus' When You Can Have Pangolins?
'The Proteus was still falling, still shrinking...' - Isaac Asimov, 1966.
Self-Powered Piezoelectric Nanotattoos
'...she has had a subdermal pattern of micro-channels implanted.' - Paul Di Filippo, 1985.
I Didn't Know You Can Already Buy Flesh Putty
'I filled your bullet hole with flesh putty and the lattice.'
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Barista Robot Perfects Latte Swirl With Multi-DOF Wriggle
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
Vendetta 2023 All-Terrain Skateboard Could Use Neal Stephenson's Smartwheels
'If you surf over a bump... If you surf over a pothole...'
Safe Street Rebel Autonomous Vehicle Luddites And Schachner's 1931 Robot-Deranger
'Then the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and they stood an instant transfixed...'
The Electric Balance Bicycle And The Decline Of Western Civilization
'Noiselessly, on rubber-tired wheels, they journeyed...'
'Droplet' Battery Microscale Power Pack
'...a power pack the size of a pea.'
ARX-5 Doing Robot Arm Dancing
It's Data's day - at last.
CD, DVD Bit Rot And PKD's Civic Notification Distorter
'...copy two of the original document no longer can be superimposed on copy one.'
Inbiodroid Prometheus 2.0 Telepresence Avatar Robot
My prize robot, tall, dashing would speak and act for me...
Amazon One Is Frank Herbert's Palm Lock
'A palm lock must be keyed to one individual's hand shape and palm lines.'
DroneDog Ground Security Robot Dogs From Asylon
'I have transferred the ego of a dog to a synthetic dog brain in the skull case of a robot dog.'
Who Knows What Might Be Found When Visiting A Metal Asteroid?
'...inspect the tiny speck of matter that swam toward them out of the bottomless void.'
Giant Lunar Surface Test Bed Built On Earth
Astronauts first walked the site, then flew over the site at a few hundred feet in a small Cessna.
FlyCroTug Drones Work In Teams Now
'It slid smoothly out of its cell like a metal wasp emerging from its nest, and hung in midair.'
Zai Pits (West Sahel) And Dew Collectors (Dune)
'Each is planted most tenderly in its own little pit.'
Delivery Robots Being Bullied, Robbed
'Robots have worse problems than anybody.' (A Present for Pat)
Zoom Education Idea Is 100 Years Old
'... the frosted glass squares began, one by one, to show the faces and shoulders of a peculiar type of young men.'
