Methuselah's Mixture ~ Economist on Anti-Aging

In their piece, Methuselah's Mixture, the latest Economist surveys a new book, The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Ageing Revolution by David Stipp...

"...for all the gloomy fascination that surrounds ageing, precious little research has been done into its causes. The question of why we grow old and die still divides evolutionary biologists. Strictly speaking, ageing does not seem to be inevitable. After all, both cancer cells and some very simple forms of life appear highly resistant to the passage of time. And while we know plenty about the consequences of ageing, we know much less about the exact biological processes involved. [...] Improvements in technology, particularly the ability to sequence DNA quickly, have made the serious study of ageing possible. All this is carefully chronicled in “The Youth Pill” by David Stipp, a former medical writer for the Wall Street Journal and an able guide to this young science. His book draws readers down the blind alleys and experimental dead ends that are an inevitable part of scientific research, as well as explaining the advances that have been made and the hunches that led to them."

Sounds very compelling. I'm adding it to my reading pile. The innovation frontier of Gerontechnology is indeed wide-open and, apart from Neurotechnology, perhaps the single most important research theme of today.