Never say die

It's pretty cool. They say it's better to beat the alternative. One un cool thing about being almost 50 is that my cholesterol is too high. I need to improve my diet and exercise more. No one would have high cholesterol if that were so easy. If you want to bring it down, you could use medication. A lot of people do this, but it's not a cure and the side effects can be intense.

It is possible that I could have my genes edited using the same technology as the patient in New Zealand did. The leading cause of death is heart disease. The mere prospect of such a treatment is amazing.

It would have sounded like a science fiction novel a few years ago. Some of them seem like science fiction. Aging and death have always been part of our life. Is it possible that aging isn't inevitable? If we could reverse the process, what would it be like? You think this is far-fetched?

A flotilla of billionaires and Silicon Valley elites, as well as the Saudi royal family, have poured a lot of money into this question. The story of the quest for medical rejuvenation is told by Antonio Regalado.

It's even more intriguing if we could live forever. It's because we can. Charlotte Jee learned that an artificial intelligence could be used to create a replica of her parents. She explored technology that could be used to allow the living to live with the dead.

Even if we can live forever in a smart speaker, there is still no way to avoid death. There are many people working on that. If you want to be brought back to life one day, you may want to have your body preserved at 196 C. Even though cryonics is a "hopeless aspiration that reveals an appalling ignorance of biology", the field is still moving forward.

It is possible to donate one's body to science if one wants to help others live longer. It is nothing like what you have imagined, even though you have heard of it. The curtain is pulled back to show how intimate this process really is.

I hope this issue gives you a lot of fodder to ponder. I would love to hear what you have to say. I can be reached at mat.honan@technologyreview.com

You're on the other side.

Mat