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

 

Altos Labs' Bezos Wants An Anti-Agathic (To Live Forever)

Altos Labs has received $270 million in funding; it's a biological reprogramming tech company currently looking to reverse the ageing process.

One method being studied by Altos Labs is whether this reprogramming could teach cells to revert back to their ‘stem cell’ origins, make them readapt to the skin and give it a more youthful appearance...

Also joining Altos Labs’ team is Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, a Spanish biologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, who won notoriety for research into mixing human and monkey embryos and who has also predicted that human lifespans could be increased by 50 years...

Rich people and billion dollar corporations are looking for the same thing in James Blish' famed Fifties tetrology Cities in Flight. A new technology called a spindizzy permitted people to explore the solar system and the stars, and a new drug made possible the long, long lives that were needed for the journey:

"...What we want now is something much more direct: an antitoxin against the ageing toxin of humans. We know that the ageing toxin exists in all complex animals. We know that it's a single, specific substance, quite distinct from the poisons that cause the degenerative diseases. And we know that it can be neutralized. When your lab animals were given ascomycin, they didn't develop a single degenerative disease - but they died anyhow, at about the usual time, as if they'd been set, like a clock, at birth...

"So what we're looking for now is not an antibiotic - an anti-life drug - but an anti-agathic, an anti-death drug..."
(Read more about anti-agathics)

So, Jeff Bezos is working on the spacecraft part, and now he's working on the immortality part...

Just for fun, I wanted to throw in another reference to an original approach to living longer, from A Race Through Time by Donald Wandrei, published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1933.


('A Race Through Time' by Donald Wandrei)

He describes conscious retarded animation

"...It means that the rate, the tempo of his existence will be slowed down to almost zero. But from his own standpoint, he'll be living a normal life. People outside will see him as a dead man, never moving, while he, inside, will see the whole world speed up and the Sun rush across the sky, and the seasons fly past in minutes. He'll be traveling in time, in a real sense..."

I suppose it's probably not active enough for billionaires...

Via ScreenshotMedia.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/1/2021)

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 ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Medical ")

Octopus Suckers Inspire Transdermal Patches
'...a capsule which he placed against his wrist.' - Philip K. Dick, 1960.

'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.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

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

18 Wheels Mutant Centipede Vehicle
'If a centipede were a dinosaur and made of metal to boot...'

Octopus Suckers Inspire Transdermal Patches
'...a capsule which he placed against his wrist.'

Robotic Hands Have More Than One Use
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'

Space Weather To Universe Weather
'It radiates outward in a cone which, by the time it has reached our section of space, is many lightyears across.'

That's MOXIE! Terraforming Mars Baby Steps
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock.'

'No, I'm Not A Robot' - Robot
'... with a weird simulation of life, the ten forked ends of each arm commenced a rattling pressing of the buttons.'

Missing Jet Finally Found
Ah, what could have been - still in the future.

Philippines Coast Guard Cuts Chinese Barrier
'Each of the four areas is enclosed by a sonic wall...'

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...

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.