Interesting article on a simple worm parasite that lives to be very old, comparatively. Probably this is the human equivalent of Methuselah, but not as a myth, or a fiction like your Third Eye, Nick Danger. :-)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130222143142.htm As a "senior citizen" myself, I am fascinated by all the news on "life extension" that comes along in the popular press these days - and have posted a few thoughts on various aspects of it here before. Gene doping, the closer one looks - seems to be a technology that is rapidly approaching, like it or not. In fact it is nearer than LENR and at the tipping point already, but may be intentionally "played down" by those who see an advantage to controlling it, in a post-Capitalist society. (to be explained). Here was Part 1. http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg70751.html I say "possibly further along than many of us realize" not from any kind of inside information - but based on "human nature" (which is generally more reliable than inside information). A number of the dedicated researchers, if you read their CV, are older and consequently have a deeply personal interest in the results. It is pretty much that simple. I have been told that NIH has no retirement age, and can look like an assisted-living center at Lunch Break. This is in contrast to Wall Street, where if you have not made it to the top by 40, you will be looking for farm work. In any event, the "old parasite" story above indicates the kind of survival strategy that humans may someday employ under the category of "gene doping" and in the NWO (which is to be embraced by us all, comrade) . In paraphrasing a number of Sci-Fi novels and movies - it goes something like this (never mind that it may sound too much like liberal-progressive policy for a few) : The technology is held-off the free market (to the extent possible). Ideally, a younger successful person in the techno-class, say early thirties, would be chosen (based on accomplishment and peer assessment) to have his or her own stem cells harvested, multiplied (as both a cell-bank and as a "pre-clone") especially for various important tissues (proto-organs) which are stored away for 20-30 years using cryogenics. This would be a highly competitive motivation for those who choose this kind of "non cash" incentive. Then a some point - near the former "retirement age" - that chosen person, if still deemed worthy and willing to 're-up', the individual would go in for "regrooving" so to speak. The stored younger tissues would be surgically implanted. The motivating concept being that periodically, one could attain many physical vestiges of youth and remain highly productive for longer, but that is only IF one wishes to continue working. When some organ finally wears out, if it is not replaceable - there is always the cloning option. There is a huge fringe benefit to society for this, at least if it can be limited to the most productive individuals, especially in the sciences, since it goes without saying that the first 25 years of any students life is essentially of enormous cost to the system - but this cost is avoidable. If society defers the retirement age of a productive individual, say at age 60 for twenty more years, with the promise of a third or fourth "regrooving": then that is the functional equivalent of an extra highly trained scientist for almost nothing: pennies on the dollar (for cryo-storage). That is also why this incentive could be ostensibly denied to the rich, but there is always a work-around for them (if they don't mind having surgery in the Third World). Parts of this scenario have been explored before in Sci-Fi (not to mention Firesign Theatre) but that does not detract from the likelihood of it really happening. ...even if our Electrician genius candidate did not attend Communist Martyr High School ... Jones
<<attachment: winmail.dat>>
