Anti-Aging Compound identified

Yes, good analysis. I'm just saying that I hope that it happens, but it would cause a big societal upheaval.

You forget what it's for? Oh man, suddenly I'm not looking forward to 90.

I know, I know. I'm not even sure how a world would work with increased (or almost perpetual) lifespans.

I never thought they would "cure" aging. I expected it to remain an elusive dream for at least a few hundred years if not thousands. But with the latest advances now I'm not so certain they won't at least make a big dent in it within the next generation.

Before my grandfather passed away he reminisced once about how much the world had changed while he was alive. He was born before anyone he knew had a car or a radio or electricity or running water, but by the time he died we had moon landings, computers and the internet. I grew up in a world already humming with electricity and computers, but before I die will I reminisce about a time when people actually grew old and died. And will my daughter have a hard time imagining what that might have been like.

Don't get too excited yet. I have heard announcements like this dozens of times and none of them has resulted in anything substantial. For example, when the free radical theory of aging started to become popular in the late 6os, lots of people thought that you would just have to take vitamin E and a few other antioxidants to slow down your aging. Let's wait and see. On the plus side, Sinclair is reputable.

I'm skeptical too. But we needed some other science related topic to discuss rather than the usual Creation/Evolution discussion with delusional people (that we have a lot of right now)

I agree. Actually, this (longevity) is one of my favorite subjects.

I was never much interested in this before as I considered it mostly a pipe dream, but although I remain skeptical, I'm feeling differently about this announcement and the approach (mitochondrial and cellular pathways) to the problem.

As far as I can tell, there's no reason from a biological perspective that an organism couldn't have traits for extreme longevity. But because evolution and selection is related to reproduction and not longevity, there has never been any selecting factor for longevity (or at least not a strong one). It seems to be more functional from an evolutionary perspective to have lots of kids and hope they survive, than to try to live longer and continue to produce more kids. Also, there's competition within the community for resources (I'm thinking about herd and pack animals as well with this) so that the young end up competing with the old for resources, and thus ending their bid for longevity as an evolutionary mechanism for increased reproduction.

Aging is probably a collective term for many different mechanisms of error and degradation. We have to identify the mechanisms and then figure out how to block or reverse them. Two heavy hitters in the process are probably (a) oxidation by reactive chemicals and (b) crosslinking.

I always considered his research to be sound. Unfortunately, today it appears that he is primarily interested in making a fast buck ($$).

My body produces this already, in my 50s and still look 32

And I am not sure this is correctly labeled a "compound" that alone makes it seem suspect.

More like a protein.