Immortality, Inc.
Renegade Science, Silicon Valley Billions, and the Quest to Live Forever
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
This gripping narrative explores today's scientific pursuit of immortality, with exclusive visits inside Silicon Valley labs and interviews with the visionaries who believe we will soon crack into the aging process and cure death.We live in an age when billionaires are betting their fortunes on laboratory advances to prove aging unnecessary and death a disease that can be cured. Researchers are delving into the mysteries of stem cells and the human genome, discovering what it means to grow old and how to keep those processes from happening. This isn't science fiction; it's real, it's serious, and it's on track to revolutionize our definitions of life and mortality.In Immortality, Inc., veteran science journalist Chip Walter gains exclusive access to the champions of this radical cause, delivering a book that brings together for the first time the visions of molecular biologist and Apple chairman Arthur Levinson, genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter, futurist Ray Kurzweil, rejuvenation trailblazer Aubrey de Grey, and stem cell expert Robert Hariri. Along the way, Walter weaves in fascinating conversations about life, death, aging, and the future of the human race.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Readers will find out where humanity stands in the quest to prolong life and outwit aging in this easy-to-read, journalistic work from Walter (Last Ape Standing), a journalist, documentarian, and former CNN bureau chief. He opens by describing Alcor, an institution dedicated to preserving, and possibly one day resuscitating, the recently deceased. However, his focus is elsewhere on the goal of avoiding death in the first place. Walter reveals an ongoing effort spearheaded by a group of Baby Boomer Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Aubrey de Grey, Ray Kurzweil, Art Levinson, Larry Page, and J. Craig Venter, among others. Having arrived at a rejection of death's inevitability via various paths computing, medicine, and hard science together they've embraced a view of aging as a disease, and thus as being curable, or even preventable. So far, not much definitive has come out of their efforts, Walter acknowledges, but vast resources have been poured into researching the diseases associated with aging, by looking at DNA, stem cells, and the microbiome. Not deeply technical, Walter's study works best as an admiring, if sometimes amused, look at these idealistic, possibly overreaching visionaries. His fascinating account will interest those who want to know more about Silicon Valley's rainmakers, as well as where science now stands on preventing and curing disease.
