Immortality and eternal youth

The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant - Recounts the Tale of a most vicious Dragon that ate thousands of people every day, and of the actions that the King, the People, and an assembly of Dragonologists took with respect thereof. A story by Nick Bostrom.

The Methuselah Mouse Prize (MPrize) is the premiere effort of The Methuselah Foundation; a scientific competition designed to draw attention to the ability of new technologies to slow and even reverse the damage of the aging process, preserving health and wisdom in a world that sorely needs it.

The Methuselah Foundation has already raised over 4 MILLION DOLLARS for this prize, but this is only the beginning.

The Immortality Institute is a nonprofit 501(3)(c) organization with the mission "to conquer the blight of involuntary death." The organization hosts an online forum, publishes books, creates films, and sponsors conferences in order to advance life extension research.

Exploring Life Extension - A film by the Immortality Institute that explores various aspects of extreme life extension including cryonics (cryogenics), caloric restriction, transhumanism, and other scientific pursuits.

Prospects for extending healthy life - a lot -- Aubrey de Grey's Google Tech Talk video, May 29, 2007. 1 hr 1 min.

Do You Want To Live Forever? - Channel 4 documentary about Aubrey de Grey. 1 hr 16 min.

SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) - Aging is a set of progressive changes in body composition, at the molecular and cellular level, which are side-effects of essential metabolic processes. Many of these changes are eventually bad for us -- they are an accumulation of damage, which becomes pathogenic above a certain threshold of abundance. SENS is a detailed plan for curing human aging.

Aging really is barbaric. It shouldn't be allowed. I don't need an ethical argument. I don't need any argument. It's visceral. To let people die is bad.

-- Aubrey de Grey

Peter A. Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of online payments system PayPal, has announced his pledge of $3.5 Million to support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging, to be conducted under the auspices of the Methuselah Foundation, a charity co-founded and Chaired by Dr. Aubrey de Grey.

Mr. Thiel commented: "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. I'm backing Dr. de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones."

"To a scientist, there is nothing impossible about it. Something is impossible if it violates a physical law. If it doesn't, it's possible. This is a basic tenet of science. Living 300 years doesn't violate a physical law, so it has always been possible. It is a human failing to think that something we haven't done is impossible. Instead of following facts to their logical conclusion, we follow intuition, which tells us that the earth is flat and a heavy thing, such as an airplane, can't possibly fly."
-- George Webster Ph.D

"The commonest misconceptions about the ageing process are that we age because in some fundamental sense we cannot survive for longer, or that we are programmed to die because this is necessary to make way for the next generation. Neither of these ideas is correct."
-- Tom Kirkwood, Reith Lectures 2001

The First Immortal (1997) by James L. Halperin is available as a free download. A national best-seller, The First Immortal is one of the most meticulously researched scientific novels ever written, and presents a balanced, and at times frightening, yet ultimately optimistic view of the possibilities of human science and philosophy.

Cryonics is the process of using very cold temperatures to stop the dying process when ordinary medicine can no longer sustain life.

Alcor Life Extension Foundation - As of August 2006, Alcor had 805 members, and 74 patients in cryopreservation.

Top 9 Cryonics Myths - Vitrification, not freezing!

Alcor Cryonics FAQ

Cryonics Institute - As of September 2006, CI had 614 members, 74 patients and 44 pets in cryopreservation.

"I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens."
-- Woody Allen

"I've long thought it a pity that non-transhumanists equate trying to conquer death with a childish fear of death and a lack of wisdom. This is like saying Sir Edmund Hillary had a childish fear of mountains."
-- Philip Goetz

"To me, discussing the value of life extension with people uninterested in extending their own lives is a great deal like suicide counseling. I see no easy way of translating my positive attitudes about life into other people having a positive attitude about life. I have come to believe that if a person does not value life, or believes that the value of life has an expiry date, the matter is beyond discussion. And I mean this not in the sense of difficulty of communication, but in the sense that what is of value to me may not be of value for someone else. I like strawberry and she likes vanilla. I want to live to be a thousand years old -- and he doesn't care whether he is alive in five years. Personal choices."
-- Ben Best

Those who say death cannot be killed
Lack the proper defensive skill
Yell it out with an angry sound
Sayin' "Death, you're goin' down!"
-- CoG, Death to the Angel of Death

Way Lay: The Fighter

YouTube: Killing Death

Jeanne Louise Calment (1875 - 1997) has the longest confirmed lifespan in history at 122 years and 164 days.

Jeanne Calment's remarkable health presaged her later record. At age 85, she took up fencing. At 100, she was still riding a bicycle.

"I've only got one wrinkle, and I'm sitting on it."

The Monkey Cage
Once upon a time there was a big cage inhabited by a tribe of monkeys...

Turkey Story
Once upon a time there was a farm, and on the farm were some turkeys...

Three Fishermen
Three fishermen are fishing together on a river...

The Myth of Sisyphus
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain...

No, it's rubbish, death is. I mean, there's so much to do. So many things to see. People to drink with. Women to swive. You lot may die. I expect you will, 'cos you're stupid. Not me, though.

-- Sandman, The Doll's House, Men of Good Fortune