>>A Blog About the Science and Technology of Living Forever

Vasper, a high-tech exercise machine, reportedly provides the equivalent of a two-hour workout in only 20 minutes. And you don’t sweat!

If you compare the annual death rates among two groups of men aged 50 to 70, the data shows men who work longer live longer. Death rates of those still working are roughly half that of the death rates of men the same age who are fully retired.What’s going on here? I thought retirement was supposed to be good for you! (By the way, the study showed that the effect was also there for women, but it was less pronounced.) The results shown on this chart immediately beg the question: Is this causation (working actually causes or enables you to live longer) or correlation (there’s no direct causal relationship). Here’s one possible explanation that would weigh in on the correlation side: People who were on disability benefits and whose health was compromised were excluded from both groups. Studies – as well as anecdotal evidence — suggests that engagement with life is what helps prolong life. This is what the authors of the book Super You also concluded. People get engagement with life from working longer. However, the can also get it from taking up causes, volunteering, hobbies, and contributing to family and community. It all comes down to “having a purpose”, said the Super You authors, which includes Andy Walker and Kay Walker. Finding powerful reasons for getting up in the morning in my retirement years is as important as my financial planning. My prior blog post, Can’t Retire Yet? Don’t Despair, suggests that we may need to work a little in our retirement years to make ends meet. In this case, I won’t be bitter–working may be keeping me alive! The jury is still out on the question of whether working might increase your longevity. What’s your take on...

The human ear is pretty impressive and hard to artificially replicate. By comparison hearing aids are still sizeable, uncomfortable and have yet to get to the point where it makes it possible to hear rich sounds that humans take for granted. Still, inserts, like crickets, may provide insight into how we can learn to to design a small speaker that is  loud, just as you’d need for a hearing aid and help treat conditions like single sided deafness and unilateral hearing loss. Crickets make sound by rubbing their wings together. The wings are corrugated in patterns which make them stiff. This makes them very loud when the insect rubs them together. Scientists can use laser vibration systems and advanced computer modeling simulations to mimic this idea, by engineering the stiffness of the speaker surface. This produces a simple and efficient way to make ultra small speakers that produce sound that is very loud. Hearing aids are designed to operate in stages. Audio signals are collected by a microphone and then amplified to be louded. Background noise is filtered out with digital processing technology. As a result the speaker in a hearing aid can deliver high-intensity sound to an ear.  Better understanding insects may help us in each of these processes. We can learn more about bio-acoustics through the locust. It has two large “tympanal” membranes that is uses to hear. These membranes, on its chest, vibrate with sound. They transfer the audio signals to the insect’s nervous system,  just like a human’s ear drum. Scientists have discovered that this membrane has a regular variation in thickness. When sound is played to it, i produced tsunami-like vibration with the peak of the wave directly at the location of the nerve cells. This allows for huge amplifications of the sound....

One of the often overlooked elements of the Mediterranean diet is the content of what is now days called supergrains. These include Farro, Freekah and other whole grains The diet says that grains, vegetables, and fruits should be eaten at most meals, because they are important sources of vitamins, minerals, energy, antioxidants, and fiber. An eating pattern high in these foods promotes good health and weight control when consumed wisely. About Mediterreans Grains The majority of grains should be whole grains, including wheat, oats, rice, rye, barley, and corn. These are best consumed in whole, minimally-processed forms, because refining usually removes valuable nutrients, including vitamins, minerals and fiber. Grains and grain products common to the traditional Mediterranean Diet include: barley, buckwheat, bulgur, farro, millet, oats, polenta, rice, wheat berries, breads, couscous, and pastas....

A typical person lives 28,835 days until they meet their end and their cremated ashes or body is returned to the earth. Each one of us knows what a day (24 hours) feels like, and how long it takes, and how variable any day can feel. But 28,835 days is just a number—unless you count it out in jelly beans. Here’s some cool jelly bean facts from The Singularity Hub 5,475 jelly beans takes us to 15 years old the remaining 23,360 jelly beans sleeping, working, preparing or eating food, watching TV, doing chores, and commuting. beyond that, we have 2,740 days to be creative and for leisure time The site also says: “Modern medicine has added over 11,000 jelly beans since the turn of the last century. This varies globally, but US life expectancy was 47.3 in 1900 and 78.7 in 2010.” Have a look ay this great video that helps you visualize your life in jellybeans. (Thanks to Singularity...

HARRY ROSEN IS 103. He lives alone in a studio apartment on West 57th Street in Manhattan. His hearing has declined and he a bit far-sighted but his mind is as sharp as most men half his age. Still, he doesn’t remember the last evening he didn’t go out for dinner at one of the city’s top-rated restaurants. It’s been too many years. People say Harry doesn’t look a day over 90, and indeed when people ask him his age, he tells them he is 90. He’s never had a major operation and as far as he knows there is nothing wrong with him. And yes, every single afternoon Harry dresses up in one of his fine business suits, grabs his satchel, and heads out to hail a cab to one of his favorite dining establishments. He eats alone but the waiters always know who he is and patrons at nearby tables almost always strike up a conversation with him. Twice a week Harry goes to David Burke’s Townhouse on East 61st Street where a server greets him, escorts him to his usual corner table, brings him a glass of chardonnay and his usual appetizer of raw salmon and tuna. Harry was recently profiled in The New York Times.  The article makes for fascinating reading, the writer refers to Harry as the city’s “oldest foodie,” but there are no direct refers to any of his longevity secrets. Yet, reading through the lines, I’ve come up with a list of Harry Rosen’s 10 longevity secrets, which follows: Harry always orders fish. For a non-Eskimo he has unusually high levels of omega-3 fats in his diet. His omega-3/omega-6 ratio must be highly favorable to reducing any risk of heart disease or dementia. Harry’s daily routine never varies–this keeps his life stress free....

A fascinating piece from Mental_Floss shows how humans may still be evolving in accordance with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The piece suggests that the following are traits that show humans are still evolving: non-human milk drinking the slow disappearance of wisdom teeth disease resistance shrinking brains and blue eyes These all point to continue evolutionary development of mankind. Read more...

A recent study at the University of Western in Ontario, Canada is suggested a second look at coma patients in a vegetative state may be required before “pulling the plug”. Following an experiment with MRI technology, Professor Adrian Owen and Postdoctoral Fellow Lorina Naci have determined that a man in a coma – the result of a serious car accident – is aware of his surroundings and his identity. This breakthrough finding challenges many of the assumptions about “vegetative” patients, and gives hope to their families. Dr. Owen, a Canada Research Chair, is behind the groundbreaking studies that examine patients under the medical sentence “vegetative state”. He suggests that these patients are simply incapable of “generating” — which simply means they don’t have the ability to communicate.  However, he says these patients still have the intention to communicate, making them a conscious human being with functioning capacities. MRI images prove Dr. Owens hypothesis to be true.  Using a comparison chart of a healthy human brain and that of a vegetative patient he provides a visual aid that shows the specific areas of the brain that signal a “yes” or “no” answer to a set of questions.  The questions used have specific answers routed in the patient’s reality to test if the brain is of sound mind. Dr.Owen is not the only doctor leading the research in neuroscience. Jill Bolte Taylor originally entered the field of brain science as a result of her schizophrenic brother.  She became a highly acclaimed scientist at Harvard University. On Dec. 10, 1996 a blood vessel exploded in the left half of her brain. From that day forward Jill could no longer walk, talk becoming an infant in a woman’s body. In her book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s...

They say bacon is not good for the heart. In Heidelberg, Germany, that is changing. Our porky little friends are being used to produce scaffolds for refreshed hearts infused with human stem cells. This results in transplantable hearts for those that can’t wait for donor human hearts. The first step in the process of creating a pig heart for transplant into a human from to strip the pig’s heart of pig heart cells. Then the resulting scaffold is refreshed with stem cells from a human. The result: a pig heart transformed with human cells. What does this mean for humans? Well, in terms of heart transplants we will have the ability to treat everyone who needs one.  Right now there is a shortage of human heart donors.  There are thousands of people waiting to receive a transplanted healthy heart from an unfortunate accident victim. The new pig-powered procedure is experimental. And it may be decades before it can be performed to help humans. Controversy around stem cells is not helping matters. Still, these advancements may one day lead to the replacement of organs such as, lungs, livers and kidneys. Learn more in this video: A New Heart Grown from Stem Cells...

If you are a man and you want to live longer the answer, it seems, is simple.  A recent study by German experts revealed that men who marry younger women enhance their chances of longevity. So, if you are a man go ahead and shack up with a woman 15-17 years less your senior.  It my mean a longer lifespan and healthier future for you! The analysis was conducted by a research group at Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. The researchers looked at the deaths of the entire population of Denmark between 1990 and 2005. Danish men who marry women much younger than them live longer. WHY? One hypothesis that explains the increased rate of longevity is natural selection. It is possible that younger women choose healthier, better maintained older men as their marriage mates. Therefore, it is these types of men who are naturally taking care of their health and as such have a better chance of living longer. A second idea presents the notion that many men with considerably younger wives are rich. Because of their financial means, these men enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle than average men, i.e. they have no worries about money, better access to regular medical checks, health cures, leisure, etc. All these factors contribute to a long life span. Another theory, suggested by Sven Drefahl of the Max Planck Institute, points to the fact that a younger woman will care for a man better and therefore he will live longer. A younger spouse may also have a beneficial psychological effect on the older partner and provide them with better care in old age. What about women? The funny thing is the same results bode useless to our female friends.  Women who marry men...

A new nasal spray may give snake bite victims at shot at survival. As many as 125,000 people die each year from from venomous snake bites. The challenge? Getting to a hospital in time to get a dose of anti-venom. Most victims die on the way. Drugs used to treat snakebites aren’t easy to use in the wild. So researchers developed a nasal spray to deliver anti-venom drugs (anticholinesterase agents such as neostigmine.) They have been used for decades on snake bite victims, but the challenge is they have to be administered with a needle. In April 2013, researchers from the California Academy of Sciences and the University of California, San Francisco tested delivery of the life saving medicine via nasal spray. In India a doctor has since successfully used the spray to reverse facial paralysis in a patient who had been bitten by a krait, a common venomous snake found in Indian and south Asian jungles. One bite from a krait has enough venom to kill two grown men. The patient recovered from the facial paralysis in half an hour, and was back on their feet within two...

If you are planning on living forever you may want to consider relocating to a new locale.  Where?  Well, Dan Buetter, author of “Blue Zones: 9 lessons for living longer from the people who’ve lived the longest”, has done the work for us.  He has travelled the world tracking the 5 best places to live to increase your  life expectancy. The following places were outlined as the top five places to keep you alive and kicking: #5 Okinawa, Japan For women specifically, Okinawa Japan is one of the most fruitful places to live. In 2013, Misa Okawa was named The Guinness World Record Book holder for being the oldest woman alive at the age of 115.  Misa is among one of the 50,000 centurians from Japan, making Japan one of the best places to be if you want live forever.  And, Okinawa just so happens to be a leader when it comes to longevity. WHY? A diet rich in vegetables and fish leads researchers to believe that the cause of longevity in Okinawa, and Japan at large, is attributed to their healthy diet.  The Japanese culture on average consumer 25% less calories than their North America friends.  Naomi Moriyama, co-author of “Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen”, says that the Japanese diet, “concentrates the magnificent energy of food into a compact and pleasurable size.” The Okinawans are also known to lead a low stress lifestyle.  They are not run by clocks and alarm systems and have no concept of rush hour. Most Okinawans take time to meditate daily. And, lastly genetics plays a role.  The Japanese people are less genetically predisposed to a variety of harmful diseases. And when they do get sick they use natural medicinal...

Two doctors have invented a heart replacement device that is keeping a man alive without a heartbeat. The gadget which replaced his failing heart pushes blood like water through a garden hose. So there is no heartbeat. Amazing. See how it was done in this short (under 4 minute) mini documentary. Heart Stop Beating is the story of Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier, two doctors from the Texas Heart Institute, who in the spring of 2011 replaced a dying man’s heart with the device they developed, demonstrating that life  is possible without a pulse or a heart beat, with the right technology. The documentary is called: Heart Stop Beating (click the link to see it now).        ...

If you think eating bacon will kill you, think again. According to health and fitness guru Mina Yun: 1) Bacon fat is 50% monunsaturated (the same kind as olive oil), and has antioxidants that are more powerful than vitamin E. 2) Bacon from pastured pigs that forage in the sun is also a good source of vitamin D. 3) Bacon is high in saturated fat and cholesterol, but that doesn’t matter because there’s nothing wrong with saturated fat and cholesterol.  (read: “The Cholesterol Myths” by Uffe Ravnskoff.) 4) Bacon’s high-fat content keeps you satisfied and levels out your blood sugar, which will keep you from eating that donut later on, which will help you lose weight. 5) Sodium nitrite – a traditional curing salt for bacon, as well as a growing health concern – might not be such a bad thing, afterall. 6) Not all bacon is created equal. Choose wisely. Don’t believe it? Read Mina’s post here:...

Cancer breakthroughs in June have stunned the medical world and cleared the way for development of drugs that halt cancerous growths in their tracks and prevent their spreading. The new science gives millions of people suffering from the disease hope and a new tool to fight for their lives. A summary of the new research from the University College London: Researchers say they’ve observed for the first time how cancer spreads throughout the body and metastasizes. Cancerous cells tend to follow healthy cells through the bloodstream. The infected cell sniffs out healthy cells by sensing the chemical makeup of its environment. The discovery means drugs that disrupt this interaction would essentially prevent  (the spread of cancer cells). It will take several years before scientists have a handle on a therapy based on the research. Breast Cancer Breakthrough Another major breakthrough brings hope to breast cancer patients. Researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute announced a drug already on the market in Europe, approved to treat osteoporosis, can also stop late-stage breast cancer. The drug bazedoxifene binds to the estrogen receptor and interferes with its activity and degrades the receptor to get rid of it. The drug affects cancerous cells dependent on estrogen and cells that have developed a resistance to the most frequently-used drugs designed to treat breast cancer. Click HERE to read...

Researchers may have a new tool in the fight to cure neurological diseases after they discovered the role of an important brain protein which helps store learning as long-term memories. In a study published in Nature Neuroscience, they said further research into the Arc protein‘s role could help in finding new ways to fight neurological diseases. The protein might also be connected to autism. Research has also revealed the protein is lacking in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Scientists recently discovered that Arc is depleted in the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s. Read more at...

An epidemiological study of more than 400,000 aging Americans showed that men who consume 2-3 cups of coffee each day had a 10% lower death rate than their non-coffee drinking brethren. Women that drank the same amount had a higher longevity rate: They were 13% less likely to die. While it isn’t clear why the peppy black beverage extends longevity, the correlation is worth noting. Other research also shows that consumption of about three to four cups each day is linked to a reduction in a variety of diseases including type 2 diabetes, basal cell carcinoma skin cancer, prostate cancer, oral cancer and the recurrence of breast cancer. Animal studies show that caffeine — the active substance in coffee that perks you up – might impact brain chemistry to delay the onset of dementia. In 2012, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discovered when lab mice are briefly starved of oxygen, they lose the ability to form memories. Half of the mice then received caffeine equivalent to a few cups of coffee. Those lucky mice bounced back 33% faster those mice that did not get caffeine. It turns out caffeine disrupts the ill effects of adenosine, the substance in cells that usually provides energy but is damaging when cells are distressed. Adenosine might cause a biochemical reaction that leads to inflammation, and impairs brain cells. It might possibly contribute to brain damage including the process that results in dementia. So we say: Drink your coffee! And live...

Kay Svela, who writes the homemaking blog Little Miss Wife, chimes in on the inequity between the genders on living longer in marriage. She explains why men live longer when they are married and how their wives can too. Read more: Why men do better when they are...

Have a can of cannabis and cure your cancer. Sounds far fetched doesn’t it? And yet there’s some evidence that the controversial plant has cancer curative properties. And it can be consumed in a liquid form and without the “high” associated with the psychoactive plant.

“Our genes harbor many secrets to a long and healthy life. And now scientists are beginning to uncover them. IN A FIELD historically marred by exaggerated claims and dubious entrepreneurs hawking unproven elixirs, scientists studying longevity have begun using powerful genomic technologies, basic molecular research, and, most important, data on small, genetically isolated communities of people to gain increased insight into the maladies of old age and how they might be avoided. In Calabria, Ecuador, Hawaii, and even in the Bronx, studies are turning up molecules and chemical pathways that may ultimately help everyone reach an advanced age in good, even vibrant, health.” National Geographic’s May 2013 issue contains one of the most thoroughly researched and interesting articles on longevity ever published. We highly recommend you read this article Also, because National Geographic’s editors couldn’t decide what race of baby to put on the cover and ended up publishing several versions, they also created a FACEBOOK app that lets you put your own face on a National Geographic cover. We tried it out and it works great! (see below)   If you’d like to try this, click...

Researchers in Switzerland have discovered the impact of a longevity gene in mice which is crucial in unveiling the secrets of aging. Their findings led to an experiment that extended the life-span of worms by 60% through use of basic antibiotics.

Thanks to startling new research on immune cells in salamanders, medical science may be able to help humans one day regrow their limbs and regenerate their organs.

If you’re not willing to send electrical shocks through your brain – “mild” as they might be – to become smarter, here’s a much gentler option: play sounds while you sleep. Researchers have found that “carefully timed” sounds, like the rise and fall of waves washing against the shore, can help people remember things that they learned the previous day. I predict sales of white noise machines to increase in the near future. In the human brain a network of neurons are often activated together. The collective rise and fall of activity of the network produces oscillations, the lines we see in an EEG. At different times the brain oscillates at different frequencies. During sleep the brain produces slow, <1 Hz oscillations – hence the term “slow-wave sleep” – and these oscillations are thought to be important for consolidating memories. The idea that the scientists at the University of Tübingen in Germany wanted to test was whether or not auditory stimulation that boosted the slow-wave oscillations also boosted memory. The study included 11 people who learned word associations right before they went to bed. Their word association memory was tested before they went to sleep and then again the following day. While they slept, they were played short durations of pink noise, a hissing sound similar to white noise. Importantly, the pink noise sounds were timed to the sleeping person’s “slow-wave” brain oscillations. When the individuals received the pink noise stimulation they were able to remember twice as many word associations than without the stimulation. When they repeated the experiment with pink noise that was not synchronized to the slow-waves, they saw no improvement in memory. Monitoring the brain waves with EEG, the researchers also saw that the sound stimuli actually boosted the ongoing slow-wave oscillations. This led the researchers...

We were quite taken by this piece by the blogger Kay Svela who writes LittleMissWife.com as she explore the joy of wine consumption, not only from a perspective of giving up “personal house rules” to allow for a little joy but also for the health benefits of wine that she outlines later in the post. Check it out: Wine drinking is good for your health and soul...

Researchers have succeeded in building a functioning kidney built from newborn rat cells.
And it’s being called is a major step towards personalized transplant organs for humans.

Hugh Hefner’s diet is rich with comfort foods. He also practices portion control

A chemical found in red meat helps explain why eating too much beef and bacon is bad for the heart, say scientists. A U.S. study shows carnitine, a compound found in in red meat, is broken down by digestive bacteria and kicks off a chain of events that results in higher levels of cholesterol as well as increased risk of heart disease. (The cholesterol and saturated fat content of lean red meat is not that high.) There has been an abundance of studies suggesting that regularly eating red meat may be damaging to health. Carnitine can be broken down and converted in the liver to a chemical called . The study showed TMAO was strongly linked to development of fatty deposits in blood vessels. Reducing the number of bacteria that feed on carnitine would in theory reduce the health risks of red meat. Vegetarians naturally have fewer bacteria which are able to break down carnitine than meat-eaters. Learn more at the BBC’s...