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There is a very high chance that the Russian translation of Ending Aging will become available upon Aubrey's arrival to Moscow. Aubrey's visit to Russia was made possible by Michael Batin's "Science Against Aging" campaign.

Some of the "Science Against Aging" foundation documents - in English - are posted to a recent Immortality Institute thread. They are comprehensive and impressive, to say the least, put together by people who have taken a great deal of time to survey the scientific landscape. Take a look for yourself:

• SCIENCE_AGAINST_AGING_POSTER.pdf ( 133.57K )
• SCIENCE_AGAINST_AGING_RESEARCH_PLAN.pdf ( 748.92K )

Given the breadth of research being condensed down into the diagrams in the first PDF document, and the level of debate within the scientific community, I think that everyone will find something in there to disagree with. You might actually want to start with the second document above, which is somewhat more readable for the layperson. All in all I think you'll agree that this work represents a worthy initiative of the sort we'd like to see more of. From the research plan:

In October 2008 a working group was created to develop and promote a comprehensive program to defeat aging. It was set up in Russia by the "Science for Life Extension" foundation. The project is supported by many Russian and international researchers.

If you read through the literature for the Science Against Aging program, you'll see something very like the early iterations of Aubrey de Grey's Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence in intent and motivation, but with a somewhat different focus on the scientific side of things. I'm always pleased to see new advocates with strong connections to the scientific community step up and start working, and this Russian group has quite the few members judging by the credits section of the plan document. The more the merrier - dozens of such groups forming independently in the zeitgeist of the time were evident in past successes in patient advocacy.

As it turns out the same questions can be asked of killer whales. They also live long in comparison to many other mammals, far past the age at which they can no longer reproduce. I noticed a very readable paper recently that looks at the question of this sort of evolved longevity:

Although existing data do not allow us to examine evolutionary tradeoffs between survival and reproduction for this species, we were able to examine the effect of maternal age on offspring survival. Our results are consistent with similar studies of other mammals - oldest mothers appear to be better mothers, producing calves with higher survival rates. Studies of juvenile survival in humans have reported positive benefits of grandmothers on newly weaned infants; our results indicate that 3-year old killer whales may experience a positive benefit from helpful grandmothers.

I would expect there to be some evolutionary balance struck between older parents being better parents and older parents being more damaged by aging, though it isn't clear just how much of a selection effect is applied when you're looking at older parents. Perhaps only the best survive to older ages to be those better parents.

This paper doesn't firmly answer any of the questions posed, but is is a good overview of current thinking on how we humans ended up aging the way we do. As the broad diversity of the animal kingdom shows, there are plenty of other options on the table for natural life span, all too few of them better in terms of years of health attained. While it is interesting to look at our origins, it is also important to remember that we already have the knowledge and capabilities to step beyond them. Aging to death will one day be a barbaric thing of the past, eradicated along with smallpox. Just how soon that comes about is entirely up to our collective efforts.

Normally the repair process falls off quickly, because heat-shock proteins inhibit the proteins that grab onto the cell's DNA and summon them in the first place. But Morimoto and his colleagues found that jacking up levels of SIRT1 keeps the protein-repair process going for hours and hours.

So processes, such as calorie restriction, that increase sirtuin levels are improving the performance of repair mechanisms in your cells - assuming you are also undergoing cirumstances that will release heat shock proteins. Calorie restriction will do that nicely.

It occurs to me to wonder to what degree this particular method of improved repair is important in longevity versus others mechanisms, such as autophagy for example, also increased during the practice of calorie restriction.

Capito said when they tested the nanofibers on mice with Parkinson's symptoms, 83 percent of the ones injected with them recovered.

It is interesting that regeneration of two very different types of tissue damage are improved by nanofibers. The researchers are also investigating how nanofibers could be used to form scaffolds to support and encourage stem cells used in regenerative therapies - a self-assembling scaffold would be a jump ahead in efficiency over those which have to be carefully manufactured.

"It’s a challenging environment for the cells to survive," Losordo said. "We thought, if we could provide the cells with some survival cues, or a matrix or a soil, if you will, that they’re happier in, maybe we’ll have better luck with retention, survival, proliferation, differentiation of those cells into the target organ."

And so forth. I have long been greatly puzzled by medical professionals who devote themselves to preserving human health and life under all other circumstances but preach that we should not do anything about aging - the root cause of the greatest ongoing toll of suffering and loss of life. Nothing else even comes close, yet all too many people close their eyes to the possibilities offered by medical science when it comes to addressing the biochemical and cellular damage that is aging.

On this topic, I notice that one of the few vocal pro-longevity bioethicists is working his way through a discussion of attitudes to longevity science at the moment:

Having said that, I can also appreciate why it is hard for so many people to abandon their "pro-aging" or "pro-magic" belief system. Indeed, I myself used to hold those beliefs and it has been a long and sometimes difficult journey to go from the beliefs I once held as a young adult to those I have today. Giving up these beliefs requires a major re-orientation of one's perception of the world, something few people are keen to undertake. Indeed, I would describe my own transformation as one that involved a good deal of cognitive dissonance

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