34: How we can cure ageing and live forever: Dr. Andrew Steele

To start off 2021 on the On the Edge with Andrew Gold podcast, we’ve got scientist Dr. Andrew Steele to talk about living forever, and how we might cure ageing in the coming decades and centuries. What better way to start the year? Although, if it’s anything like 2020, you may not want to live forever. Anyway, Andrew’s new book Ageless has just come out – get it on andrewsteele.co.uk/ageless. It made for a fascinating read – I was up all night hoping to find the answers, because I’ve always loved the idea of staying young and living forever – many of us like that concept, while others don’t, and we’ll discuss why.

What I would say…most of you listen to this on audio-only, but if you’re ever going to check out the YouTube page, this is the time to do it, because Andrew’s video is absolutely gorgeous, shot with a pair of top-of-the-range cameras. It makes such a difference editing something so lovely. So just Google YouTube On the Edge with Andrew Gold or type youtube.com/andrewgold1 to find it – do subscribe to the channel while you’re there. And subscribe to Andrew Steele’s page, youtube.com/drandrewsteele, where you’ll find incredible 4k beautifully shot science videos explaining things in a way that makes sense … even to idiots like me!

In today’s episode, we talk about why people are so hostile to the idea of living forever – why it’s always portrayed as a negative, selfish and unattractive thing, while death seems to be a positive, heroic and noble thing. We look at tortoises, jellyfish and worms, gene therapy (not Levi’s), and how we might overcome such potential immortality issues as overpopulation and a poor/rich divide. We talk about whether it’s possible to die of a broken heart and whether women will be able to have babies at much older ages, and we discuss something called cell senescence, which is when cells in our body stop dividing (apparently they normally divide, but when they stop dividing, that’s a big part of what we’d call ageing). And we look at how we ourselves might extend our lives and live into the coming millennia.

Next week’s episode is with Canadian ex-Muslim human rights activist Yasmine Mohammed.

Andrew Steele Links:

Buy Ageless: andrewsteele.co.uk/ageless

Twitter: https://twitter.com/statto

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrAndrewSteele

YouTube: youtube.com/drandrewsteele

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