Technoscience and the Future

Life-extending technologies are getting more lab time and investment than ever before, and with experts in the field proclaiming the knowledge is just a few decades away, you'll want to be around for it.

 

Over the past decade, the main areas of research -- brain emulation, regenerative medicine and cryonics -- have gradually been departing the realms of science fiction and making a name for themselves in scientific journals. Back in 2009, when Avatar suggested that people could one day upload their brain to an invincible body-double, it seemed like something only James Cameron could dream up. Then a student in Israel controlled a robot with his mind from 2,000km away. In 2009 Aubrey de Grey announced -- to more than a few raised eyebrows -- that the first person to live to 1,000 thanks to regenerative medicine was probably already alive -- and by 2012 a four-year old became the first person to receive a life-saving blood vessel made from her own cells. And around about the same time the horrendous 1997 film Batman & Robin painted cryonics as a field best reserved for psychotic villains, Gregory Fahy and William Rall announced the development of the first cryoprotectant able to vitrify the human body slowly enough that ice crystals don't form and cause tissue damage.

 

Wired.co.uk spoke with leading proponents of each field to find out if we could be convinced to fork out £50,000 to have our brains put on ice. (Wired and Tired by Luke Robert Mason, director of Virtual Futures and advisor to Humanity Plus).

Via Athena Drakou