Portraits from the 9th "Health Extension Salon"
![](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5325/8797311570_59aeff18c7_h.jpg)
These are various researchers, activists, and other folks wanting to stay youthful into old age, and they're getting together to share research notes on how to do it.
Last night's talk was from a guy who surgically connected young mice to old mice: Like, he made siamese twins out of normal mice. Why would you do that? Because the evidence is (and his research confirmed) that by having the circulatory system of the old and young mouse connected, the old mouse was somehow brought back to youth. More than half the mouse-pairs died soon after being connected, but the pairs that survived lived out the expected lifespan of the younger mouse, with the older mouse kept alive, even healthy, all that time.
It's a phenomenon known as "parabiosis", and the experiment was last published in the 19th century. This guy, Michael Conby, was presenting on the first serious replication such mad science in over 100 years. If the mechanism for youth-via-blood-connection can be found, we may be able to replicate it using stem cells, or some other more reasonable technique.
![](https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8797313380_1837856e2a_h.jpg)
Helping to organize the event was a local grad student who studies the genomes of the 17 people currently alive who've made it past 110 years of age.
![](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3668/8786733281_7ebba42808_h.jpg)
More here.
![](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5325/8797311570_59aeff18c7_h.jpg)
These are various researchers, activists, and other folks wanting to stay youthful into old age, and they're getting together to share research notes on how to do it.
Last night's talk was from a guy who surgically connected young mice to old mice: Like, he made siamese twins out of normal mice. Why would you do that? Because the evidence is (and his research confirmed) that by having the circulatory system of the old and young mouse connected, the old mouse was somehow brought back to youth. More than half the mouse-pairs died soon after being connected, but the pairs that survived lived out the expected lifespan of the younger mouse, with the older mouse kept alive, even healthy, all that time.
It's a phenomenon known as "parabiosis", and the experiment was last published in the 19th century. This guy, Michael Conby, was presenting on the first serious replication such mad science in over 100 years. If the mechanism for youth-via-blood-connection can be found, we may be able to replicate it using stem cells, or some other more reasonable technique.
![](https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8797313380_1837856e2a_h.jpg)
Helping to organize the event was a local grad student who studies the genomes of the 17 people currently alive who've made it past 110 years of age.
![](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3668/8786733281_7ebba42808_h.jpg)
More here.
VIEW 15 of 15 COMMENTS
Only in a few months though. Don't want people getting sick of me
But other than the supervillains that want to live forever, how many people really wanna prolong life over and over again? Is this even a worthy endeavor? I read that no one has technically died of old age since 1951, so it's not like this is really helpful in that sense.