The everyday philanthropists of the Methuselah Foundation's Three Hundred will be getting an early look at signed copies of Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae's "Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime". From an email presently sitting in my inbox:

As a major supporter of the Methuselah Foundation, you are set to receive a free advance copy of the new book, "Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime" by Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D, and Michael Rae.

I have nearly 100 copies of "Ending Aging" sitting here in my living room right now, all hardcover and signed by Aubrey de Grey. The Methuselah Foundation would like to make sure that all "300" members receive their books as soon as possible.

UPDATE: a picture of the living room in question and thoughts on the book from Anne C.

And the Amazon editorial syopsis:

A long life in a healthy, vigorous, youthful body has always been one of humanity’s greatest dreams. Recent progress in genetic manipulations and calorie-restricted diets in laboratory animals hold forth the promise that someday science will enable us to exert total control over our own biological aging.

Nearly all scientists who study the biology of aging agree that we will someday be able to substantially slow down the aging process, extending our productive, youthful lives. Dr. Aubrey de Grey is perhaps the most bullish of all such researchers. As has been reported in media outlets ranging from 60 Minutes to The New York Times, Dr. de Grey believes that the key biomedical technology required to eliminate aging-derived debilitation and death entirely -technology that would not only slow but periodically reverse age-related physiological decay, leaving us biologically young into an indefinite future - is now within reach.

In Ending Aging, Dr. de Grey and his research assistant Michael Rae describe the details of this biotechnology. They explain that the aging of the human body, just like the aging of man-made machines, results from an accumulation of various types of damage. As with man-made machines, this damage can periodically be repaired, leading to indefinite extension of the machine’s fully functional lifetime, just as is routinely done with classic cars. We already know what types of damage accumulate in the human body, and we are moving rapidly toward the comprehensive development of technologies to remove that damage. By demystifying aging and its postponement for the nonspecialist reader, de Grey and Rae systematically dismantle the fatalist presumption that aging will forever defeat the efforts of medical science.

Just so.

Technorati tags: aging, book, life extension, SENS

Posted by Reason at August 22, 2007 9:24 PM | TrackBack (0)