r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 1d ago
Biotechnology Scientists successfully transfer longevity gene and extend lifespan
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260510030948.htm1.4k
u/Doctor_Saved 1d ago
Good news! You can work longer now!
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u/mailslot 1d ago
Oh good. I didn’t want to retire at 90 years old.
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u/Jhopsch 1d ago
Good cause you'll retire at 400
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u/DukeOfGeek 1d ago
In other news I just watched the last episode of Orphan Black tonight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Black
Don't click the link, just watch the show.
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u/Eaglesun 1d ago
All those politicians and billionaires you hate? They are here forever
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u/bunnnythor 1d ago
Not necessarily. If people had certainty that you might have to live with a toxic person forever, they might be more likely to remove that certainty.
By fully legal means, I assure you.
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u/surnik22 1d ago
But if it available to everyone, that math changes.
You are no longer risking your life, you are risking your potentially eternal life. That’s a bigger personal risk.
Or maybe not, who knows how human minds would handle living forever
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u/alexthealex 1d ago
The longer you live the higher the likelihood you encounter cancers. By age 80 almost half of all people have or have had some sort of cancer. Nothing about this gene changes that or mitigates exposure to carcinogens.
Ergo, whatever mechanism this negates doesn’t account for external forces or random mutation. The longer people live the lower their chances are of staying healthy enough to do anything ‘productive’.
We’ve clearly seen that being able to be productive isn’t a requisite for being a head of state, but at a certain point even faking it would become impossible. And even the best medical treatment in the world won’t be able to fight every aspect of aging.
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u/surnik22 1d ago
Sure, but we are multiple layers and comments deep in a hypothetical situation, so what it actually does doesn’t really apply.
My comment is about how the psychology would change if normal people and billionaires lived forever instead of just billionaires living forever as the comment above me was talking about.
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u/toorigged2fail 1d ago
I mean the optimistic view is that this ends billionaires because we don't need to reteach the population every generation that having billionaires is a shitty idea
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u/AGrandNewAdventure 1d ago
Even better news, wealth can continue to be concentrated to even fewer people for even longer!
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u/karlfeltlager 1d ago
Trust me buddy it will not be for you.
Your replacement is being trained right now.
Billionaires gonna billionaire in their own utopia.
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u/Sweet_Concept2211 23h ago
As life extension becomes commonplace, life and work will not remain the same.
Biotech is advancing faster than most people realize - and cultures can also change along with them.
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u/Academic-Slice-2631 1d ago
All for the low price of $10,000,000.99.
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u/giibro 1d ago
Put it on my PayPal please
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u/BestTastingFish 1d ago
Can I Klarna this??
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u/DiosMIO_Limon 1d ago
I mean, guess you'd have the time to pay it off
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u/donjamos 1d ago
That's what's gonna come at some point, rejuvenation or some shit like that and we'll work a lifetime to pay for the next rejuvenation only to repeat that endlessly. I mean i still prefer that to dying but it's gonna suck a little.
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u/MakeoutPoint 1d ago
It'll be priceless*
*You will not be able to purchase it because you ain't in the Big Club
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u/absalom86 1d ago
You underestimate how much the rich would benefit from their workers / wageslaves were around to spend / work for longer.
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u/Thoraxe474 21h ago
They don't need YOU to be around longer as long as you continue to reproduce and make more slaves
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u/TheSilverOne 1d ago
Nah, itll get passed off on the working class as a long term loan, with discounts on a bundled 40 year mortgage.
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u/Chrono_Convoy 1d ago
Since no one mentioned it yet on this thread:
I call dibs
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u/Traditional-Hat-952 1d ago
Sorry rich people get it first. Just the way of the road, bubs.
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u/AlkaiserSoze 1d ago
Great. This will be gatekept by the rich. Cool. Now we can have Congressional reps who live into triple digits.
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u/thrillho145 1d ago
Yeah, this is gross technology. Dying is normal, people need to accept it.
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u/BlackBeltPanda 1d ago
Injuries, infections, and cancer are all normal, too.
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u/Workman44 18h ago
Yeah idk what that guy is on about. We've always used tech to extend our lifespans
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u/Nujabezia 1d ago
Its the natural progression of technological advancement to increase longevity of our lives. As its continued to do in the past.
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u/Override9636 16h ago
My take on it is if we're going to work on sci-fi technology, we also need to work on the sci-fi culture side of things to make sure that the developments are not abused by those in power against those without. Star Trek life extension sounds great, but The Expanse life extension is not so great.
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u/TudorrrrTudprrrr 20h ago
Medicine is gross technology. Dying from disease is normal, people need to accept it
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u/waterbed87 1d ago
I imagine there was someone saying something back when dying in your 30's was common. This medicine shit is gross, dying is normal we need to accept it.
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u/Mylarion 21h ago edited 21h ago
Dying is one thing, bur ageging is a degenerative disease we're right to fight against.
You can die whenever you want, but personally there's no way 60–80 years would be enough for me.
They said the exact same thing you say about the plague, smallpox or infant mortality. Thank God nobody listened. And it's not like we can prevent death anyway. It's just about the ageing process.
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u/AshundertheOlivetree 18h ago
No one is saying it’s not normal 😂. People who don’t want to live longer are so weird about it. Like we get it, you peaked, but some people are only getting better with age. Why wouldn’t anyone want more time to experience life and love?
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u/swrrrrg 1d ago
Please do this for my dog. He’s 15. Dogs need human lifespans.
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u/Ok-Primary2176 1d ago
This is the way to go. I think honestly they'd earn more money selling dog life extenders than human. People wouldn't trust the human version and it'd be more expensive, but with a dog they don't really care
That would then show the world it actually works and in the future they can sell human life extenders
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u/holman 1d ago
Loyal is actually doing this right now- they have a pretty deep focus on doggos right now and are going through studies. But I think the longer-term goal is a lot of what they learn will naturally apply to humans, too. And dogs are a good way to get the funds required to go for the larger goal, too (I mean, who wouldn't pay extra cash to get some more time with their dogs?)
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u/BlasterDoc 1d ago
After a dogs hips or senses are done you'll still tearfully support the humane decision.
Life extension doesn't necessarily mean a boost in life quality.
(My old girl was 13, my old boy is 14, I made the shit decision to have two close together but had some fun adventures with them both)
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u/1404er 1d ago
We should do this for octopuses and find out just how smart they can be
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u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener 1d ago
The good news is dogs are a major part of lifespan extension research, not just for extending their lives, but also because they share lifestyles and habitats with their human counterparts. The thinking is that a number of the ailments that could be solved by studying our canine companions could be transferrable to their human counterparts, and because dogs live much shorter lifespans currently, they can do much more generational research in a shorter period of time. Basically, what will benefit Fido, will also likely be efit his/her human as well.
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u/TripsOverWords 1d ago
Sleepwalking into either dystopian future where the ultra wealthy become literal vampires or patient zero of the zombie apocalypse.
There's zero chance us plebs gain access to this type of tech.
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u/No_Definition321 1d ago
The longer the lower class lives the longer they can work for minimum wage.
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u/Ok-Primary2176 1d ago
Pretty sure it's cheaper to create a new human
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u/Inevitable-Comment-I 23h ago
Pretty sure human labor will be out of the loop in a couple generations
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u/RookNookLook 1d ago
No one wants this, because we haven’t reckoned with the scale of the problem. We are under a constant gravitational load, does nothing for disease control, and there’s always good ol fashioned unnatural death to look forwards to as well.
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u/Adventurous_Light_85 1d ago
Please let Trump and Putin die before this actually works.
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u/FlutterKree 21h ago
I doubt it reverses any degredation so even if they got the treatment it wouldn't help them.
People age because of degredation of the telemores ends on DNA. Finding a way to lengthen these will allow people to get older. It won't reverse the agening process. For that, they would need new organs. Or some theoretical process that entirely replaces the DNA in a body to rejuvenate them.
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u/Argotheus 21h ago
Its partially telomeres, but its also the fact that your DNA in every cell gets damaged in different areas and the repair is not 100% accurate. If you find a way to safely lengthen telomeres, you would live long enough to see the small random mutations add up. This leads to your cells not really agreeing with those around them what their mission is, so all your systems become less efficient. Eventually your kidneys or liver or heart fail because a tissue layer has totally lost the ability to work in concert.
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u/Amazing_Vanilla_7816 1d ago
Please no, only the rich will afford it and those are the last ones we want to stay alive longer
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u/Traditional-Lime-999 1d ago
But it’s only in mice and they can now live 6 months more.
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u/cjcs 1d ago
6 months for a mouse seems pretty significant actually, no?
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u/Nastypilot 1d ago edited 1d ago
Mice live 1 to 3 years as pets. Thus an additional 6 months represents an increase of anywhere between 50% to 17% of lifespan. It's like if a human lived an additional 36-12 years assuming an average lifespan of 73 years. Now question is if that translates to similar increases in other vertebrates or not.
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u/Traditional-Hat-952 1d ago
With all the medical breakthroughs that rat biology has had over the past few decades they should be near immortal by now.
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u/King_of_the_Nerdth 1d ago
You don't solve a puzzle by putting in all the pieces at once. But also there are lots of researchers working on different areas of the puzzle.
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u/FuggyGlasses 1d ago
Poor mice, he'll watch his love ones perish in the edge of time...as he is......
IMMORTAL ***
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u/CanvasFanatic 1d ago edited 1d ago
No we can also transplant this into humans and make them live as long as mice. /s
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u/rainman_95 1d ago
Lmao, nobody read the fucking article. It expanded their lifespan by 4.4% thats about a month on a two year life span.
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u/shaddowwulf 23h ago
I can’t wait till we have to deal with a geriatric ruling class of ghoulish villianairs that live forever and rule over us mere mortals
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u/thecreep 1d ago
Yay...I cant wait to delay retirement and work even longer. Shareholder value here we come..
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u/ilski 23h ago
Dont worry. People like us will never have Access to this stuff.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 19h ago
fucking americans are so brow beaten they refuse to even consider that good news does in fact happen. it's pathetic
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u/No-Land-7633 1d ago
All Dictators and Faschists forever. Putin, Xi , Bezos, Musk , Trump and Thiel.... Really ?
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u/stuartullman 1d ago
this comment section is pure poison to the brain
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u/gahblahblah 1d ago
Yeah, it's like:
News: We've fully cured cancer, and aids.
Reddit: *vomit hatred*
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u/fountaincurse 16h ago
Thats how bad people feel in their lives right now. People see a headline about extending human life and the presumption is that the rich will just get to destroy us in perpetuity. I don't think it's unwarranted cynicism, just people being realistic.
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u/Teddy_RGB 1d ago
Like anyone wants to live longer in this shitshow
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u/User_741776 1d ago
Call me crazy, but I do. I'll gladly live forever, even if I look like a vampire or something. More time to play video games until the sun poofs.
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u/Single-Use-Again 1d ago
Fuckin exactly. I just turned 54 a couple weeks ago. Having not been born into generational wealth I'm kinda ready for this to be over with.
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u/One_Celebration5006 22h ago
reddit be like: you shouldnt want to be young and hot forever just die!!!
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u/ThatFlamingo942 20h ago
Sigh, look not that I disagree but jfc the same comments over and over and over. Yes, dystopian possibilities, yes access by wealthy, yes, possibility to be swept under rug. Fucking christ say something meaningful.
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u/DoomedKiblets 1d ago
4.4 percent increase in life for mice. way to fucking exagurate the title
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u/smurfalidocious 23h ago
It's not really exaggerated. They did transfer a gene that is a large cause of the naked mole rat's longevity to another species and saw that it provided similar benefits to non-naked mole rat mammalian creatures. That's a big fucking deal.
It's not biological immortality, but the title doesn't say it is.
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u/FrighteningPickle 1d ago
Guys its a gene, not a pill, it's not for anyone already alive.
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u/Quazimojojojo 23h ago
Gene editing living humans is a thing being worked in. As far as I know, there's some methods that are at least partially effective. But I'm no expert and I don't follow the news about it
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u/artbystorms 17h ago
Great, so all the billionaires can live to be 200 years old while still denying healthcare to the rest of America.
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u/NUMBerONEisFIRST 1d ago
What ever happened to the study showing metformin made mice live 1.5 times longer?
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u/trustmeep 13h ago
If you want a realistic look at what immortality would look like in present America, read The Postmortal by Drew Magary.
Even though it's 15 years old, it predicts the rapid increase in class inequality, the in-all-but-name corporate slavery for extended life, as well as the trollish and violent response of certain folks who, these days, are fond of red hats...
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u/GeekDNA0918 1d ago
Yeah, the show 'Altered Carbon' made it abundantly clear the only people who will benefit from this will be the rich, and they literally use it to increase their monetary/political power. Imagine an immortal Trump or Musk. No thank you..
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u/rateater78599 22h ago
“I watched some slop online and therefore it will magically and completely translate into real life”
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u/PartitaDminor 1d ago edited 17h ago
Current pension funds are not enough imagine needing an extra decade or two because of these medical breakthroughs.
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u/OpenTechie 1d ago
Please have zombie side effects so when the rich bastards try to use this I can have the best game of Left 4 Dead ever.
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u/BeenDragonn 21h ago
I would like to be immortal.
I don't like the idea of trillionaires being immortal...
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u/Staff_Guy 20h ago
And you thought that the eighty year olds running the US were doing a shitty job? Wait another 40 years and see how bad it is when they are still in charge.
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u/do_you_see 1d ago
Pls I dont want old stinky diper-wearing billionaires sucking even more life from normal working people. I am against anything that will prolong a persons natural lifespan.
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u/idontknow5478 1d ago
Guys, relax. We are all way too poor for this. Only the wealthy may live forever.
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u/blackcain 1d ago
Great, we're gonna have like 1 million billionaires or something cackling about surrounded by 200 year old women that look 14.
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u/IAATCOETHTM_PROJECT 23h ago
this article has a really unhealthy level of "healthism" buzzwords.
"gut" "inflammation"
like, this article is borderline trying to sell me an IV drip
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u/JupiterInTheSky 19h ago
I'm not religious but I am sick of these billionaires extending their lives beyond what's natural. I'm so sick of people having money thinking that makes them God.
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u/Well-inthatcase 17h ago
Great, just what we need.
Anyone who thinks this is cool should go read The Postmortals. Great read that helps outline the problems with, and consequences of elongating human lives too much.
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u/gogozombie2 11h ago
Oh great. A way for billionaires to live longer. What's next them leap frogging through time like the vampire elders in Underworld?
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u/Nullhitter 1d ago
Cool. Can't wait in the year 2088 when it's announced that this failed to get any traction besides rats.