[HN Gopher] Dog Aging Project
___________________________________________________________________
Dog Aging Project
Author : T-A
Score : 116 points
Date : 2024-12-31 08:05 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dogagingproject.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (dogagingproject.org)
| abc-1 wrote:
| Last I heard this had tens of millions of dollars allocated to it
| and yielded little to no results, unfortunately. Is that not the
| case?
| mahkeiro wrote:
| The publication page of the site seems to contain quite a few
| publications. What do you mean by no result?
| abc-1 wrote:
| Nothing useful to improving human quality of life.
| worthless-trash wrote:
| I thought I had narrow definitions of usefulness.
| abc-1 wrote:
| That was stated as the main goal of the project: improve
| quality of life in dogs and hope the results transfer to
| humans. It didn't achieve that goal so far. I really
| don't know what you want me to say.
| scott_w wrote:
| Being a little facetious: If my dog lives an extra 5
| years of high quality life then that would improve my
| quality of life immeasurably.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| Exploring unknown paths that turn out not to lead anywhere
| useful is still worthwhile, since we can't possibly know
| beforehand what unknown information will or won't be
| useful. We don't even know what research might become
| useful based on new information from some other field or
| line of research.
| abc-1 wrote:
| Great, so there's no way to "fail" and they can keep
| asking for money indefinitely. See the problem here?
| You'd stop shoveling money into research that hadn't
| yielded any results either, especially if it was $24
| million dollars that could have gone to better avenues.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| ?? It's about improving the lifespan of dogs, not humans.
| But if you must, well, dogs living longer (while healthy)
| == happier human dog owners.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| Are there other examples of innovations flowing from veterinary
| medicine to human medicine?
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| malaria parasite discovered when researching cattle disease.
| Qem wrote:
| Euthanasia.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _other examples of innovations flowing from veterinary
| medicine to human medicine_
|
| "As microbial and genetic discoveries were made, pathogenesis
| studies were required to integrate the new knowledge into
| useful clinical advances. Those advances include a creative
| model of enteric bacterial disease (Moon), demonstration of the
| transmissibility and pathogenesis of scrapie, a proposal that
| human kuru was a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy
| (Hadlow), and the isolation of bovine leukemia virus (Miller)
| and bovine immunosuppressive retroviruses (Van Der Maaten)--5
| years before AIDS and HIV appeared. Now modern molecular and
| genetic sciences and their applications in integrative, whole-
| animal biology make possible exciting advances for the benefit
| of both animals and people" [1].
|
| (Counterfactual: "major methodological limitations of the
| animal research and evidence of widespread publication bias"
| limit translatability [2].)
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22905/
|
| [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2746847/
| goda90 wrote:
| Dog cancer is considered pretty similar to human cancer and
| sometimes treatment trials are done in dogs after they are done
| in mice and before they are done in humans.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| I don't know, but if you find your dog is now immortal at the
| human equivalent of 25 and you're getting old and grey,
| everything hurts, and the babes don't look at you any more,
| you're probably going to want something to get done about it,
| pronto.
| senkora wrote:
| Relevant SMBC: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/jimmy
| akdor1154 wrote:
| Urgh some ungodly JavaScript is hijacking the scrolling, I wish
| the site wasn't so ineptly written.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| And no << reader mode >> possible. Totally unusable for me!
| 0_____0 wrote:
| bahaha usually when HN people are complaining about a website I
| think they're being dramatic but the way this was scrolljacked,
| it's almost like it's designed to frustrate you
| qb1 wrote:
| I participated in this project with my dog for two years. I
| stopped as the clunkiness of the web ui and lengthiness and
| frequency of the surveys. The experience left me dubious as
| to the project's methodologies.
| oyashirochama wrote:
| The best part is running this on a potato PC and watching the
| JavaScript kill itself.
| LorenDB wrote:
| I think it's actually worse that this site breaks inertial
| scrolling only half the time instead of all the time. At least
| be consistent!
| jasdi wrote:
| Animal domestication is really wild. So we first select for
| neoteny (playfulness, dependency on caregiver, physical features
| people like) basically prolonging the juvenile state. Then we put
| them in controlled environments of abundance, were all their
| needs are met. Which further diminishes need to reach adult state
| (with traits like aggressiveness to compete for resources). This
| abundance causes them to mature/breed earlier and reproduce more
| than in the wild. Basically a population of children that can
| produce children. Then we want this population of children to
| live longer.
| throw839298 wrote:
| > neoteny
|
| What domesticated animals were bread for "cuteness"? Cats are
| mice hunters. Most popular dog breeds were selected for killing
| and dog fight! That "big smile" is not for laughter, but to
| crush bones!
|
| And many domesticated animals can not even reproduce without
| human assistance. How they would survive in wild?
| blueflow wrote:
| I think requiring human assistance and inability to survive
| in the wild are an effect of neoteny.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What domesticated animals were bread for "cuteness"?_
|
| Dogs.
|
| > _Cats are mice hunters_
|
| Cats blur the line between domestication and taming.
|
| > _Most popular dog breeds were selected for killing and dog
| fight_
|
| One can breed for more than one thing. (Dog fighting as a
| selection pressure is very modern and very limited.)
|
| Dogs literally evolved a muscle to make them more appealing
| to (and help them communicate with) humans [1].
|
| > _many domesticated animals can not even reproduce without
| human assistance_
|
| Not an argument against neateny.
|
| [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dogs-have-
| special-...
| graemep wrote:
| Dog fighting is limited, but most dog breeds have been bred
| primarily for a specific practical purpose.
|
| > Dogs literally evolved a muscle to make them more
| appealing to (and help them communicate with) humans
|
| Not necessarily exactly cuteness. The other explanation
| suggested is better communication in general - by exposing
| the whites of their eyes we can see what they are looking
| at, which is an important cue for humans (we use it between
| ourselves too) to indicate the direction of attention.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _most dog breeds have been bred primarily for a
| specific practical purpose_
|
| Sure. But most of those traits are shallow. Let the breed
| go stray and many characteristics go away. The neoteny
| does not.
|
| > _Not necessarily exactly cuteness_
|
| The neoteny--large eyes and heads, for example--is
| precisely cuteness. Not all breeds are equally neotenic.
| But they're very much not wolves.
| graemep wrote:
| > Sure. But most of those traits are shallow. Let the
| breed go stray and many characteristics go away.
|
| A lot of characteristics seem to be bred in and
| instinctive - breed specific behaviour occurs without
| training. Strays do not breed pure so of course breed
| specific characteristics are lost.
|
| > The neoteny--large eyes and heads, for example--is
| precisely cuteness
|
| To an extent yes. The specific trait mentioned in the
| comment I was replying to was not neotenous. Not all
| neotonous traits are physically cute.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _breed specific behaviour occurs without training.
| Strays do not breed pure so of course breed specific
| characteristics are lost_
|
| My point is neoteny almost isn't breed specific. Let
| strays breed and it's preserved--stray dogs are cuter
| than wolves.
|
| Wild dogs don't become wolves. (They also stop being
| French bulldogs.)
|
| > _Not all neotonous traits are physically cute_
|
| Almost all physically-cute traits are neutenous.
| derriz wrote:
| > Dogs literally evolved a muscle to make them more
| appealing to (and help them communicate with) humans [1].
|
| This scene from an 1953 Tom and Jerry of Spike teaching
| Tyke what it means to be a dog seems prescient:
| https://youtu.be/jnW48TihBR0?t=50s
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Chihuahua.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > What domesticated animals were bread for "cuteness"?
|
| Fairly recent experiments with domestication of foxes show
| how it might work.
|
| What you select for is behavior. Mainly you breed individuals
| that neither attack humans nor run away from them. Any other
| response than aggression or fear is ok. In few generations it
| turns out individuals selected this way retain more and more
| juvenile traits.
|
| I think cats never needed to get domesticated because
| reacting to humans with neither aggression nor fear is within
| natural range of perfectly normal behaviors of most
| individuals of this specific niche feline species that got
| globalized through its relationship with humans.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Recently I had an interesting thought that basically people did
| almost the same to themselves spontaneously through culture.
| Which might influence various aspects of human behavior, like
| social interactions in general, cooperation and means of
| competition, mate selection. We might have genetic changes that
| are not maladaptive only in the culture that introduced them.
| As technology forces culture to evolve it might turn out that
| huge swaths of human species have their evolutionary fitness
| suddenly reduced.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Visually humans have neotenistic characteristics compared to
| other primates, so this is quite plausible.
| xapata wrote:
| And mentally. We never stop playing.
|
| Note the popularity of memes about "adulting".
| scotty79 wrote:
| What's interesting is that rigid culture that forced us
| to do adult behaviors despite retaining juvenile traits,
| now when it's getting lifted and replaced with freedom to
| do whatever you please might leave many individuals
| maladapted from the evolutionary standpoint to prolonging
| their genetic line. Which I think is perfectly fine. New
| generations that are better adapted to the culture of hi-
| tech freedom will arise from the few that currently
| accidentally already do the evolutionarily correct thing.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _And mentally. We never stop playing._
|
| Do animals stop? There are plenty of examples of play in
| adult animals:
|
| - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S
| 03766...
|
| - https://medium.com/illumination/wild-animals-at-
| play-982e26e...
|
| - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-07899-003
| oooyay wrote:
| My elder female dog _loves_ to play and the way in which
| she plays has only gotten more nuanced over time. She 's
| even adapted to play with me, play with other dogs, play
| with smaller dogs, and play with puppies.
|
| The basic semantics of her language of play are all the
| same: she bows, she'll yawn, she barks and does that
| side-eye glance. Sometimes she'll dance. If she gets
| really hyped up she'll get the zoomies.
|
| Dogs, from what I've observed, are incredibly intelligent
| and social animals as they exist today.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >Recently I had an interesting thought that basically people
| did almost the same to themselves spontaneously through
| culture.
|
| I think this already well known in evolutionary biology
| circles though not through culture. I don't recollect but it
| was most likely Robin Dunbar who said it, people ganging
| together to kill of the most annoying/bullying/maladjusted
| members.
| bumby wrote:
| Although humans may be reaching reproductive age faster,
| aren't we generally reproducing later in life? That seems
| counter to the OPs point.
| Jensson wrote:
| Those two are naturally related. If getting pregnant at 10
| usually lead to death, then your genes will avoid that if
| getting pregnant at 10 is common.
|
| However if socially we prevent girls from getting pregnant
| at 10 then biology can make them go through puberty at 10
| without risk, since they will not get pregnant anyway.
|
| Edit: As for the playfulness point, for us humans we punish
| kids for being playful when they reach 7, so it makes sense
| that we will evolve to stop playing around at 7 and hence
| becoming adults already by then. We don't punish pets for
| being playful though, at least not today.
| bumby wrote:
| I'm finding it hard to understand your point or not
| finding that argument particularly convincing. We can
| socially change much faster than we can biologically
| evolve. Meaning, the change in birth age can be heavily
| influenced by social factors (birth control, resource
| abundance, requirements for self-sustainment in
| adulthood) much faster than biology would adapt. We can
| be extremely socially different than those who lived when
| it was the norm to be pregnant at 14 while being
| essentially biologically identical.
|
| Further, we can have multi-modal distributions that
| undermine the biological assumption. Some groups show
| much lower birth ages because it's not culturally
| disadvantageous than other groups. In that context, even
| if the average age increases, it doesn't mean lower birth
| age is _biologically_ disadvantageous.
|
| > _humans we punish kids for being playful when they
| reach 7_
|
| This needs a citation or at least a definition of what is
| meant by "playfulness", because I find it hard to
| believe. I don't know any parents who would want their
| child to stop playing at 7 years old.
| flippyhead wrote:
| Just like the Eloi!
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _evolutionary fitness_
|
| But there's no such thing as an objective "evolutionary
| fitness". It only makes sense to speak of evolutionary
| fitness in a given niche.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Yes. And this niche moves as culture evolves.
| mclau156 wrote:
| "Animal domestication is really wild"
| Beijinger wrote:
| Dogs domesticated us. Wolves are hunted but dogs a fed, given
| shelter, love and access to medical care.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| You'll let me know the next time you'll have to require the
| permission of your dog to pee, or when it can trigger surgery
| to cut your balls or put you down.
| ben_w wrote:
| That humans are dominant doesn't preclude us having co-
| evolved.
| Ratelman wrote:
| FYI limited to to US only - they refer you to their sister
| project: https://darwinsark.org/ if you'd still like to
| contribute in a similar fashion but reside outside of USA.
| trallnag wrote:
| Why is the website so difficult to scroll through on Firefox on
| Android?
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| I am using version 133.0.3 (Build #2016060959),
| hg-7ed49fe90e84+ GV: 133.0.3-20241209150345 AS: 133.0
|
| with ublock origin.
|
| And it is behaving as expected (correctly, I mean)
| trallnag wrote:
| I'm on exactly the same version, also with ublock as the only
| extension. Weird. For me the scrolling stops immediately the
| moment I lift my finger off the screen
| sadeshmukh wrote:
| It's also bad with Chrome on Android.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| So when i join the project, my dog becomes a guinea pig for
| testing Rapamycin?
| aziaziazi wrote:
| I didn't know that molecule. It's an immunosuppressant, isn't
| it a bit counter productive for old people that tends to be
| weaker?
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| The idea is to inhibit mtor which regulates a lot of
| processes in the body that affects aging. The
| immunosuppressant effects are a side-effect.
|
| If it works? It was promising but latetly it looks more
| unlikely.
| Engineering-MD wrote:
| Better thought of as an immune modulator than suppressant.
| Ultimately it's a blunt tool when we lack more specific
| agents. Yes, it will have risks including infection, but the
| benefits may (or may not) outweigh the risks.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _isn't it a bit counter productive for old people that
| tends to be weaker?_
|
| Not if it's running around fighting imaginary worms and
| generally inflaming everything.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _when i join the project, my dog becomes a guinea pig for
| testing Rapamycin?_
|
| They remain a canine. But yes, they become a research subject.
| tt_dev wrote:
| Need one for cats.
| costcopizza wrote:
| We can get them to 30 with the help of Jake Perry's protocol.
|
| -A breakfast of eggs, turkey bacon, broccoli and coffee ...
| with cream
|
| -A splash of red wine to "circulate the arteries"
|
| -Stimulation by way of nature documentaries screened in his
| garage-turned-theater
|
| -Lots of love and attention
|
| See: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-
| raise-a-165-yea...
| the-chitmonger wrote:
| I've seen his story across various sources - has he ever
| elaborated on specific quantities/ratios? I haven't seen
| anyone reproduce his regimen for his cats, and I'd love to
| see some more concrete evidence that the diet is effective
| (IMHO the extensive development of his home to act as a
| massive jungle gym feels like the more likely culprit in
| their longevity).
| 93po wrote:
| This seems like it'd make for a very happy cat, but that
| level of sodium and caffeine and any alcohol intake at all
| has to be pretty bad for them.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Thanks for sharing that article, it was a great read
| bsenftner wrote:
| How many of you glance at this website and think "fraud engine"?
| This is a fantastic vehicle to suck money out of people that love
| their pets, and love animals in general. I know nothing about
| these people, but my fraud alarms are screaming.
| goda90 wrote:
| Well study participants aren't charged. Maybe it's fraud
| against those who are funding it, but the pet owners themselves
| are not the current target.
| bsenftner wrote:
| I'd examine this much deeper before engaging. It's far too
| consumer targeted, far too feel good. I would not be
| surprised if "becoming a partner" or "community scientist"
| required fees or more.
| carls wrote:
| This project is a research project out of the University of
| Washington, led by several of the professors there. I
| believe the lab is the Healthy Aging and Longevity
| Institute.
|
| They share a list of academic publications that have
| resulted from the project, and their Team page lists the
| full names a sizable large number of people.
|
| Their FAQ indicates that the cost of the DNA Kit and other
| things are covered by the project funding. [1]
|
| What made you think that it's engaging in fraud? I'm
| genuinely curious.
|
| I'm not involved in the project but just from looking at
| the site for several minutes, it seems to be a fairly
| reasonable research project.
|
| Or did you say "fraud" less to mean "these are people who
| are stealing money and e.g., hoarding it away" and more to
| mean "these are people engaging in a research project I
| disapprove of"?
|
| [1] https://dogagingproject.zendesk.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/441699...
| bsenftner wrote:
| Honestly, it does not appear like a research institute at
| all. It looks like the styling that the owners of
| People's Magazine or the National Enquirer would use to
| market their 'research nonprofit' where the actual
| research contribution is 3% of their revenues, while
| supporting fat salaries for an executive staff. It just
| looks too consumer and not academic, not serious. It is
| simply too feel good. It has the trappings of
| respectability, but not really. It's too slick. I also
| never spent the time to look deeper, the loud consumer
| targeted presentation drove me away.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Several people have corrected you, and yet you keep
| going, claiming that this is some sort of fraud. What's
| your deal? Why are you spreading FUD?
| op00to wrote:
| Maybe the person just really loves it when their dog dies
| early. :(
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Probably because creating a nice-looking website is more
| likely to drive engagement with today's users than
| something that looks like it was made by some academic
| stuck in the 90s.
| carls wrote:
| I think it's reasonable to be turned off by a slick-
| looking website, but I imagine it's because the intended
| audience of the website is the general (dog-owning)
| public, likely for the purposes of soliciting
| participants.
|
| Interestingly, through engaging with you I discovered
| that this is a cognitive bias called the "horn effect"
| and is the reverse of the more common "Halo effect": http
| s://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_effect#:~:text=The%20horn.
| ...
| zacharycohn wrote:
| You could try clicking around and reading a little bit
| before throwing wildly inaccurate, speculative, and
| slanderous accusations at an org you know nothing about.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Out of curiosity, do you feel just as strongly about very
| prominent social justice programs for humans?
|
| Especially those that target extremely small slices of
| population (some would say at the expense of other larger,
| mostly neglected groups)
| infensus wrote:
| My first thought after seeing that stock image watermark
| looking line on the dog picture
| d4704 wrote:
| It's a research project I've seen before - healthspan and
| lifespan research.
|
| If interested -
|
| Project lead interviewed by Dr. Peter Attia:
| https://peterattiamd.com/mattkaeberlein/
|
| Rapamycin:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/15/rapamycin...
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Every single longevity project - human or otherwise - is a
| scam. Fear of dying is the most fundamental one to existence,
| and scam artists have been exploiting it for as long as there
| have been people.
|
| Religion promises an eternal afterlife. Cryogenics promises a
| future thawing and cure in an enlightend and technically
| advanced future. Plastic surgery puts a veneer over the signs
| of the natural aging process. The more recent batch have
| targeted metabolism, growth inhibition (ie rapamycin), etc.
|
| Very wealthy people that don't want to die or don't want their
| pets to die will never be in short supply. They will still all
| die, roughly around the same time they would have otherwise
| from different causes with different infirmities (search for
| "sirolimus side effects").
|
| Enjoy and make the most of the years you are given. Happy New
| Year.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Obviously most people disagree, but I don't think we should
| search for medical advances that make life significantly longer.
| We should search for ideas that make the finite life on this
| planet significantly better. A longer life is dangerous. If
| people could live 150 or 200 years that will make the problems on
| this planet much worse since the desire to accumulate wealth over
| that time would be insane.
| deanc wrote:
| > Obviously most people disagree, but I don't think we should
| search for medical advances that make life significantly
| longer.
|
| I'd say we should search for medical advances that improve
| health span, not lifespan.
| typewithrhythm wrote:
| If I consider the global society I will be living in, I would
| prefer to see what an extra 30-50 years of high cognitive
| function for the people most rewarded by our current system
| produces, rather than trying to define what a good finite life
| is from some authoritarian.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| > for the people most rewarded by our current system
|
| This includes people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, who
| would make the world better off by the cognitive
| nonexistance.
| typewithrhythm wrote:
| Tech billionaires are always a weird focus for this kind of
| sentiment... Compared to the likes of the Rothschilds (just
| as a well known example) they are harmless, transparent,
| and meritocratic.
| ericjmorey wrote:
| How about an extra 30-50 years under a highly cognitively
| functioning authoritarian?
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| Is there much difference between an individual living and
| accumulating wealth over 200 years vs 3 generations of a family
| living and accumulating wealth over that time? External factors
| that change fortunes would mostly still stay the same. Biggest
| difference I can think of would be less change of an
| incompetent younger generation throwing the wealth away
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Well the "throwing wealth away" is a big difference. And it's
| not just a matter of wealth. It's what people do with that
| wealth, such as influence the world negatively. The top 1% of
| those hell-bent on doing strange things usually don't have
| children that are similarly obsessed. And finally, it would
| increase the TOTAL number of people, which would exacerbate
| the situation because an absolute total number of people
| means even more exploitation by the rich.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it would increase the TOTAL number of people, which
| would exacerbate the situation because an absolute total
| number of people means even more exploitation by the rich_
|
| The hypothesis is exploitation scales with population?
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| > A longer life is dangerous. If people could live 150 or 200
| years that will make the problems on this planet much worse
| since the desire to accumulate wealth over that time would be
| insane.
|
| I honestly think this meme is way more dangerous and insane
| than the idea of having a longer and healthier life
| yladiz wrote:
| Why?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why?_
|
| If 150 years is dangerous, why not 80?
| hasbot wrote:
| Apparently they'd agree. From their Project Details page:
|
| > At the Dog Aging Project, we're focused on healthy aging not
| just lifespan extension. We want to understand the biological
| and environmental factors that influence aging and intervene to
| prevent debilitating decline. We imagine a future in which we
| maximize healthspan--the period of life spent in good health
| and free from disease--allowing us many more years with high
| quality of life.
| paulcole wrote:
| > A longer life is dangerous.
|
| Just so we know, at what point should we have stopped searching
| for medical advances that make life significantly longer? I'm
| assuming you're anti-chemotherapy?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Obviously most people disagree_
|
| I'd argue _this_ is the popular take. With almost any medical
| research. "Don't play god" and all that. At least while the
| benefit is hypothetical.
|
| > _If people could live 150 or 200 years that will make the
| problems on this planet much worse_
|
| Climate change would become a peach. We love to talk about
| thinking of the children, but self interest is more powerful
| among most. Longer lives mean longer-term thinking.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| Worse, that wealth accumulation will also lead to cultural
| stagnation: just like "science advances one funeral at a time",
| it's a harsh reality that culture also advances one funeral at
| a time.
|
| Older generations try to take in new ideas - about
| homosexuality, racial equality, universal human rights,
| whatever else you can think of - and raise their children with
| those ideas in place too. And most often, those children find
| out later that the older generation didn't really believe in
| what they were saying, at least not to the extent of being able
| to overcome their own childhood programming. But because this
| new generation was raised with these new ideas, they're
| actually able to internalize them and progress society further.
|
| Having older people with stagnant ideas and larger and larger
| accumulated wealth and power, would be a disastrous headwind
| against social progress.
| xapata wrote:
| Like elves in _Shadowrun_.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| So instead of fixing problems with wealth inequality, just let
| people die. Should we ban healthcare after 55 so people won't
| take up valuable resources staying alive? I personally would
| prefer existing and experiencing all life has to offer.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I personally would prefer existing and experiencing all
| life has to offer_
|
| Almost as much as that, I'd prefer people having a longer
| time horizon on which they draw their lives.
| irs wrote:
| There is also https://loyal.com - Biotech Startup for
| researching/ developing longevity drugs for dogs.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I was also going to link Loyal, I think they came up on HN last
| year and had some good discussion:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38447491
|
| There's also https://leapyears.com/ - another project with
| similar goals. That one is associated with David Sinclair of
| Harvard Medical School:
|
| https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/people/david-sinclair
|
| Personally, I'm optimistic about the capacity of studies and
| projects like these to extend our knowledge regarding aging.
| Human trials are fraught with ethical issues, and have very
| slow feedback loops (acquiring results from a study might take
| decades, which can be an entire career). Laboratory trials on
| mice and other small mammals can be more effective, but funding
| is hard and the results are isolated to a small academic lab.
| Large-scale supplements for pets can give data in a few years,
| have lesser (though not negligible) ethical problems, and have
| built-in funding. The funding process is, of course, a source
| of conflicts of interest, but it has to be done somehow.
| RadiozRadioz wrote:
| That AI dog image on the homepage is dreadful. Look at the
| inconsistency in the depth of field. And the inconsistency of the
| depth of the physical field the dog is sitting in, left vs right.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I feel a good startup would be collecting old photos, vetted as
| pre 2010, and storing them for use by people.
| jessekv wrote:
| Finally, an actual use for my decades of photos...
| modeless wrote:
| Unlike futurists I have little hope of our medical system
| producing radical improvements to human lifespan in my lifetime.
| Even ASI can't cure aging if it is not allowed to do experiments
| or if powerful lobbies prevent it from accessing medical data or
| "displacing" human medical staff.
|
| If we want to get breakthroughs in lifespan extension quickly,
| they will have to come initially from something like this where
| vested interests are less strong and regulations less stifling.
| Not that I think this particular effort is going to do it, but
| something like it is the only way it could happen.
| ben_w wrote:
| While I think that anti-aging is harder than e.g. a successful
| and sane brain upload, the very thing you say in your second
| paragraph is why I think we may get it anyway -- my inner cynic
| says that there are many rich and powerful dictators who will
| be very happy to volunteer their population as test subjects.
| nradov wrote:
| Aging is not a single thing that can be cured. No one even
| agrees on what aging is.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03936-8
|
| But there's nothing stopping aging related research. Ethics
| committees allow scientists to conduct experiments as long as
| those meet proper privacy and safety standards. Nothing is
| being blocked over concerns about displacing human medical
| staff so I can't imagine where you're coming up with that type
| of conspiracy theory.
|
| Even if all rules and regulations were removed there will be no
| radical improvements to human lifespan in your lifetime. This
| is fine. You are expendable.
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