I take it this is the book published in the UK as ‘The End Specialist’? Thanks for the recommendation, being loaded onto the Kindle as I type. :)

Thanks! I’m aware the telomers are only part of the equation – I guess I was oversimplifying. You are right though. The cellular damage and DNA degeneration are huge issues.

Magary actually includes an interesting idea in the Postmortal. About 40 years after the cure was invented, scientists unveil another wonder drug – a nano-based “skeleton key” super-cure which can repair cellular damage and intelligently target bacteria and viruses essentially curing all infectious disease. It actually is not part of the aging cure – that one works on its own. It simply adds another layer of protection (so people don’t die because of diseases) contributing to overpopulation even more.

That said, something like the “skeleton key” would probably be necessary for a real aging cure to work. Something that could keep fixing cellular damage, and keep rewriting broken DNA fragments and etc..

I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of years now, and have really enjoyed it. The book reviews are especially nice as I’m an avid reader myself and always looking for new books. I might just pick up this one myself as well.

Your speculation on telomeres made me want to weigh in, as I’m a molecular biologist by training (though I must say my knowledge on the subject is not thorough, as my field of expertise is plant biotech). As you probably also know, being very interested in ageing, it is more complicated than telomeres. Telomeres are an important factor in limiting cell division, and thus to some extent for ‘cellular ageing’, but ageing as an organism is quite different. It’s not entirely clear (to me at least) whether ageing is like a programmed self-destruct function, or just occurs by chance, but it involves a general deterioriation of the body and mind. The biggest problems to me seem to be the decline of cognitive function (especially dementia, which is becoming a rampant problem in our ageing societies) and cancer, which also is related to ageing: if something else doesn’t kill you first, you will eventually get cancer, due to all the damage our cells accumulate from chemicals, radiation, our own metabolism (hence the focus on caloric restriction), etc. Interestingly, telomere shortening is one of the hurdles that cancer cells have to overcome in the process of becoming, you know, cancer cells, so engineering telomere maintenance would make cancer an even bigger issue. By which I just want to say: as with most processes in living things, it’s incredibly complicated.

But at some point we’ll probably get there, so it’s good to speculate about what might happen. The book raises a good point in that we’re not very likely to get our shit together (to me it’s a miracle that we’ve had the atomic bomb for almost 70 years and haven’t destroyed ourselves yet), and I’m not as optimistic as you are that we will reach it. I also doubt if we will be able to give meaning to our lives in the long run – psychological issues and suicide are already enormous problems, and will only become more so.

That being said, just wanted to let you know that you have an audience, and keep up the good work! ;)