"When old tissue is placed in an environment of young blood, the stem cells behave as if they are young again,"

So all I need now is a bathtub, a sharp knitting needle and a naive young virgin. Paris? Well 2 out of 3 isn't bad.

I'm ready to take the risk, for the greater good of mankind.

So what happens if old people regularly get blood transfusions from / drink the blood of young people?

. . . and everyone just carries on shagging?

It's been with us for a while if you consider reincarnation.

Constant production of nippers is usually due to people either dying young as part of 'normal' life or because some priest tells them to. There have been huge advances in rectifying the first cause but the second one is more difficult to deal with as more shagging produces more believers and more god-power. The better we get at not dying, the less kids we have.

I'm not so sure... In an environment saturated with the sex and drugs, i'm pretty sure I could give up my Led Zep collection.

Anon for obvious reasons.

Smiley face... Do you need to ask?

So the way to stay young is to abduct a small child with the same bloodtype as you and use them as your own personal blood bank. Extra blood is also useful bottled and taken to work with you as a heathy snack.

I can just see the kids turning up to school pallid and weak with a rather youthful looking mother behind the wheel of the SUV.

"So what happens if old people regularly get blood transfusions from / drink the blood of young people?"

I think they become Dick Cheney.

Really? 80-year-old mice?

@Elmer Phud:

"Constant production of nippers is usually due to people either dying young as part of 'normal' life or because some priest tells them to."

You forgot the most common reason in "civilized" society: because it feels good and contraceptives are a bother. That one, I'm afraid, is the hardest nut to crack. If we as a species can't attain near 0 population growth, we're not ready for these drugs.

Re: Anti-agathics:

You read my mind (and Blish, of course!)

<-- Will she be one of the New Immortals?

Since the researchers were looking at stem cells (which express the telomerase enzyme), telomere shortening isn't an issue. Or so says my shiny new BSc. in Biology, at any rate.

Fascinating work, and it's no wonder it got a publication in Nature. I'll be following their work with great interest.

Maybe this will be another way for rich old men to bleed everyone else, not only of money, but of actual blood.

you legalize human cloning, and you use your own clone's blood. Body parts too if need be. Renewable spare parts. Only problem is to get enough DNA the first round, as if you make a clone from a cloned spare part, you suffer from the "photocopy" dilemma. That is, making copies of copies eventually becomes unreadable.

Really, though, a Fountain of Youth will only promote a eugenics program (who's the fittest to survive overpopulation?). Yuck.

I'm not too keen on the idea of grumpy old gits* like myself hanging around way past our best-by dates.

For human societies to change (and hopefully improve, if we can learn anything from past mistakes) the older generations need to give way to the younger. The theory that it is a waste of skills and education seems fine until you try convincing a learned geriatric that some new-fangled idea is actually better than what they are convinced in their dotage to be the ultimate answer.

Would you want a generation that considered slavery to be perfectly fine to still be stinking up the planet? A generation that considered women to be chatel? The geniuses in the present ruling elites, currently sucking down the last of their oxygen, may not manage to damage the planet beyond repair before nature takes its course and they get replaced by slightly less clueless progeny - but you'd rather this doesn't happen?

Pah. Stupid young whipper-snappers with their "I want to live forever" intellectual onanism.

(* Well, technically I'm only 38, but I'm going on 70 for lack of tolerance for "young people today". Ah, it does the heart good to realise how much you despise their music, manner of dress and ridiculous conceited beliefs when you're no longer young...)

If or when a working immortality treatment is available, only the most unsuitable people will be able to afford it at first. Popes, dictators, pharma's favorite congressmen and all those people at the party in "Eyes Wide Shut". Then after a while an Indian pharmaceutical company will start producing it for 10 cents a tablet, and the entire world will become immortal except for Britain and America, who won't be allowed to import it.

Mine's the one with the receipt from the costume shop in the pocket.