Hi everybody and welcome to In Good

Company. I'm Nicolola Tangan, the CEO of

the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund. Now

longevity is one of the hottest topics

in the world right now. Billionaires are

pouring money into it. [music] You know,

when they were young, they uh wanted to

become rich and when they are rich, they

want to become young. The wellness

industry is selling it and opinions

about how to live longer and everywhere.

So we wanted to find out what is real,

what is hype and how close are we to

live forever. To help us answer this,

I'm joined by Sir Weni Rama Krishnan,

the noble winner in chemistry, former

president of the Royal Society and

author of the incredible book Why We

Die. Weni, warm welcome.

>> Thank you.

>> You start your book with the pharaohs of

Egypt who believe they could transcend

death. Why did you begin there? Well,

the pharaohs are an interesting story

because humans try to avoid death by a

variety of strategies.

Plan A is simply to try not to die. Plan

B is to try to believe that even if you

die, your whole body will be resurrected

and you will go to some paradise.

And plan C is that maybe your body will

decay but you will have an immortal soul

that will uh you know outlast you and

you can occupy other bodies and so on.

>> So now many thousand years later how

close are we to living forever?

>> I think there's no physical or chemical

law saying that our lifespan has to be

uh what it is today. I mean if you look

at it today we can expect at the most to

live to be about 110 to maybe 120 years.

Only one person has exceeded 120 years.

Uh but saying there's no physical law

doesn't mean anything because you know

there's no physical law that we can't uh

eventually colonize other galaxies. But

if you look at all of the difficulties

involved even in, you know, going to

Mars, uh, you realize that it's

incredibly hard. And so I put a this

long life extension, hundreds of years

in that category, you know, which is

highly unrealistic today, despite what,

you know, you may hear from various uh

people promoting hype. Before we uh kind

of dig deeper, how do you define aging?

>> Aging is I would say the gradual loss of

function of our systems. That is from

our molecules, cells, tissues to the

entire body. It gradually loses function

due to accumulation of damage and

changes with time.

>> And and that's how I would define aging.

Now, it has external manifestations. You

know, you you can't walk as fast. you

don't you're not as strong, you're more

resist more susceptible to infections,

you know, so there are many external

manifestations, but underneath it are

these accumulated damages to our cells,

tissues, and ultimately comes from our

molecules.

>> Well, you are 74. I can't see so many

external manifestations in you. But

>> well, I I'm lucky because I have a dark

skin in a northern climate. So that

gives a superficial

uh you know illusion. But if you if you

were to look at the inside of my body,

you you would find it's quite old.

>> Well, we should talk about that later.

But it seems like two ideas are getting

a bit blurred, right? So extending life

means slowing the aging process and then

rejuvenating cells means making old

cells young again. So what's the kind of

that difference between the two?

>> Okay, so most uh anti-aging strategies

have to do with preventing damage or

slowing down uh the you know damage and

and dysfunction. Okay. And but some one

class of strategies involves trying to

get cells to go backward in development.

And if you the way to think about it is

a fertilized egg can develop into every

kind of tissue in the body. That's what

it does, right? And the if you look at

the early embryo, it has many cells, but

each of those cells could become any

type of tissue. Those are called

pluropotent stem cells. But as the

embryo develops, the stem cells become

specialized. So some cells can only make

cells of the blood system, others can

only make cells of the nervous system

and so on. There are many types of cells

but still a small class of cells. Now

the way but this process normally never

goes backwards except in real life it

does. For example, the child born of,

you know, old parents like 30-year-old

parent, uh, it starts the clock from

zero, right? And in fact, the child born

of a 40-year-old woman is not older than

the child born of a 20-year-old woman.

So, at some point, you know, there is

this resetting.

The resetting is not completely perfect

but because there's a lot of selection

involved in birth you know all the any

cells that are defective or simply don't

make it uh to a full grown [snorts] uh

ch child. So that's the process that

people are trying to reverse. And the

first proof was when John Girden took a

skin cell from a frog

>> and took the nucleus and put it into an

egg and could grow a completely brand

new frog that was a clone of the

original frog. This showed that you

could actually reset the clock in a skin

cell [snorts] and make it develop into a

whole new frog again. And then Yamanaka

showed that only introducing four genes

into uh some cells, any cells can can

make it go backwards all the way to that

early form of a stem cell.

>> And that's the logic people are trying

to use. Now, of course, you don't want

to make all your organs go backwards all

the way back to pluropotin stem cells

because that there would be a big

confused mess and you would get tumors

and so on. But people are asking, can

you make this program go backwards just

a little bit so that the cells still

maintain their identity? the skin cell

stays a skin cell and the muscle cell

stays a muscle cell or the liver cell

stays a liver cell and but but it's

slightly backwards in development

>> you know has gone backwards so you can

think of it as a way of trying to

reverse the aging clock and that is a an

exciting area but you know making it

work in humans in a safe and effective

way it's not clear how long it'll take

>> no What's actually going on inside our

cells as we get older?

>> Well, many things happen. So, one is

that our molecules get damaged and a

primary source of damage is if you

damage your DNA so that uh you know it

it is problematic. It results in two

things. One is the cell can sense the

damage and it can send the cell into a

program called scinessence where it

doesn't function normally and in fact

creates secretes inflammatory compounds.

Now early life this is a cancer

prevention mechanism because if you have

to damage DNA you don't want that cell

to hang around because it may mutate

into a cancer cell right and so this is

a mechanism to get rid of these cells

where damage is sensed but if the damage

persists it can also alter the genes

that are you know part of the genetic

program and that can also cause

dysfunction. So there are ways that you

know molecular damage can cause

dysfunction. Now this kind of damage

then results in the cell itself not

regulating itself properly. The organels

in our cell called mitochondria

which have their own DNA but also

interact with the rest of the cell they

also can get damaged uh quite a lot. So

you can see these kinds of damages occur

due to all kinds of things. Exposure to

chemicals even water uh alone can cause

DNA damage that's that was uh discovered

by Thomas Lindal [clears throat]

>> uh for which he won the Nobel Prize. So

just the act of living causes damage but

we have sophisticated repair mechanisms

that constantly repair the damage but at

some point the damage starts

accumulating with age.

>> Those mechanisms are never perfect.

>> Talking of which so um a century ago uh

most people died when they were 50 or

before and today the average uh is

roughly 80. You mentioned one person had

made it to above

120. So why has that ceiling not moved?

>> Okay, this there's a difference between

the average and the ceiling. So life

expectancy has doubled in the last 150

years, but that's mostly due to

improvements early in life. For example,

infant mortality has gone down. Uh you

know, many infectious diseases uh can

now be cured. So and accident rates have

have been reduced dramatically. So all

of those things mean that we can live to

an older age. So the average has gone

up. Okay. But even in the 1500s,

Michelangelo lived to be almost 90. So

it's not, you know, that nobody lived to

be an old age in the in olden times.

It's just the average was low. and and

we solved it by public health and

vaccination and nutrition and medicine.

Okay, those are the four uh big things.

But as you get older, then aging starts

to kick in and that we've not actually

uh made a lot of progress in. And so the

maximum lifespan has not actually

changed a lot. It's changed a little bit

because you know people do live longer

and so more of them make it to over 100.

For example, the number of people over

100 is increasing everywhere.

>> I think the prime the prime minister

typically in the past sent letters to

everybody turning 100 and then suddenly

became just too much work. Right. In

Japan, they produce more diapers for old

people than for babies.

>> Yes. That's that's a whole another

problem. What is happening is society is

getting older but but people the

fertility rates are going down.

>> Yeah.

>> So society is becoming skewed towards an

older population. But how do we crack

this 120 year barrier? What do you think

you will crack it?

>> Well, I think I think if you slow down

aging,

uh it's unlikely that you'll get huge

gains. What you will get is more and

more people uh reaching say 100, okay,

or beyond. I think the uh way that

people might be able to crack the 120 is

by this kind of reprogramming

uh which is you know trying to get cells

to essentially reverse uh effectively

reverse their aging uh their biological

age uh by resetting uh some of these

clocks. But al although it's been

demonstrated in animals,

there are real problems getting it to

work uh in humans.

>> Why?

>> Because you know the way that they

introduce it in animals is either they

have transgenic mice which turn these

genes on or off. And by the way, we

don't know if these genes are really

safe over the long run. Some of them are

anko genes for example which can cause

cancer. Uh [snorts]

the other other way to do it is by

packaging these genes inside a viral

shell.

These are called adnoviral vectors and

then you introduce them. Now the problem

is that these genes have to go into all

of the cells in the tissues of interest

and do it sort of uniformly.

And all the evidence says that for

example when they target a pancreas only

some cells you know some clusters of

cells in the pancreas are reprogrammed

and other cells are not reprogrammed.

Okay. Now in mice this still causes some

benefit. It still produces some benefit

but you can see if you want to do it in

humans you have to be able to do it in a

much better controlled

uh and safe way you know. So I I don't

think I think there's a lot of

excitement and there's a lot of hype. I

personally don't think it's around the

corner as far as humans are concerned.

And we also don't know for example in

mice it didn't actually increase the

longevity of the mice. You know these

reprogrammed mice they they just older

mice looked healthier uh by various

criteria than younger mice but it didn't

increase their lifespan. different

organs age at different rates. Uh what

organ what organs age uh the quickest?

>> I I think it would vary quite a lot

depending on the person. You know, you

could imagine for example, if somebody's

a heavy smoker, then maybe their lungs

are aging faster than or somebody's a

heavy drinker, maybe their liver ages

faster. I just don't know. uh I I think

there the one of the more interesting

papers on it simply showed that if you

apply most standard markers then

different organs in in people were had

different biological ages.

>> Talking of these markers these hallmarks

of aging

um

what what are the what are the most

important ones? I think you you

typically talk about 12 of them but what

are the most important ones?

>> I don't think you can say one is more

important than the other. my as a

molecular biologist I think you know

modific damage or modification to DNA is

fundamental and and really drives a lot

of the rest. Uh however they're all

important in their own uh frame. For

example, damage to mitochondria is is a

thing in itself and you know loss of

stem cells is is is a factor in itself.

Of course, you could say underlying it

all, maybe the primary cause is is

damage to our uh DNA and and the

response to that DNA damage.

>> How is AI changing the pace of

discovery?

>> I think AI uh is very very good at

recognizing patterns in large data. And

so for example in my field of structural

biology uh it has really revolutionized

the ability to predict structures just

from the sequence uh that you can get

from just sequencing the gene for

example and u but

I think with aging aging is a complex

multiffactorial process it's not just

one thing I mean I mentioned DNA damage

that's not the only thing you know There

are all sorts of things that that are

interconnected

and how to make sense of that uh is not

clear and what sort of data you would

feed uh to AI to train it uh is also uh

not clear. However,

what I can say is that AI has been

advancing so dramatically that it's hard

to predict anything about AI. What are

the kind of things you can do now in

your lab which you couldn't do?

>> Well, I I mentioned for example you

could predict structures. Uh another

thing uh that you could use it for is

for looking for patterns in genes. For

example, one obvious thing is if you

sequenced lots of centinarians,

you could then ask AI to look at the

genomes and ask does any pattern emerge

here? You know that makes sense. For

example,

>> Deosabis who won um the Nobel Prize for

AFold he uh predicts that within 10 to

15 years there won't be any illnesses

left.

>> Any what?

>> That there won't be any illnesses left.

>> Yes, I know De I I actually I actually

know Deis quite well and in fact he

asked me to be on the advisory board of

one of his companies, Isomorphic Labs

and I I think he's a he's a brilliant

guy. However, I would say on this in

this case maybe he's being a bit

overoptimistic and and the reason I say

that is not because AI won't give us

clues about you know potential drugs or

even causes for example uh of diseases.

But I think going from there to having

treatments is a complicated process and

it doesn't happen in the digital world.

It happens in real people. You have to

have real medicines, real, you know,

which you make. So all of that stuff is

in the analog world and I think that is

going to take longer.

>> Do the tech people just think that uh

life is a software that can be hacked.

>> Yes, I think I think they have that bias

whether it's conscious or not. uh they

do have the bias of looking at the

entire world as if it's a software

problem

>> and the and the world is not digital the

world is analog and uh I think they

simply don't

want to want to confront that

>> why is there suddenly so much money

going into longevity research like tens

and tens of billions

>> I think there are two reasons one is the

one you pointed out about for example

about Japan which is true of all

societies

All societies are getting older and

governments and you know health agencies

are extremely worried. How do we deal

with societies where huge fraction of

the population is quite old and there's

a smaller and smaller fraction of the

population that's of working age that

can support them. Okay. So the one

solution is to try to put money into

aging research and this is the the goal

of this is not what you described

earlier of living for a very long time

but rather to make your life health as

healthy as possible but not necessarily

extending life but more increasing

health span rather than lifespan. Okay,

the fraction of life you're healthy.

That's one reason and that's a very

widespread reason everybody will sign up

to it. Okay, but the other reason is

that there is a group of people who just

have these grandiose visions. Okay, and

it's all based on the fact that they

made billions of dollars in their 20s

before they were mature. and they simply

think that everything is just going to

go their way. And these people don't

want to die. Okay? I mean,

>> why why don't they want to die?

>> Well, they love their lives. They like

the feeling of control. Uh they think,

"Oh, we solved the problem of of uh

payment transactions. So, we should be

able to solve death."

>> Why are they all men? I I do think that,

you know, they're all middle-aged men,

often married to younger women, by the

way, which is a strong incentive to want

to live [laughter] longer, but but I

should say, um, maybe it's some male

thing, you know, of wanting control and

so on. You're right, you know, and and I

do point out in the book that they're

mostly middle-aged men.

>> Tell me tell me a bit more about these

men. What do they have in what more do

they have in common?

>> They they like control. They like power.

uh they like uh obviously they like

wealth uh and so they're used to having

everything their their way. You know if

they want to buy an island they can buy

an island. If they want to buy off a

government sure they can fund some

politicians campaigns and then you know

give them uh money and then you know

suddenly the regulations disappear.

Okay. So I excuse me for being a bit

cynical but you can see this in

operation in today in the US right so um

I think I think they're used to that

kind of power and they also have these

grandio visions you know they feel like

we're the only intelligent species in

the universe or maybe and therefore we

need to populate the universe and they

there's a there's a fantastic book by

Adam Becker called uh more everything

forever and it's about these people who

just want more of everything and they

want to conquer space, galaxies, etc.

But I don't know if they really mean it

or if they're saying that so that it

sounds like a noble cause. Okay. And the

real reason is they simply want more

power and they don't want to die.

>> Now, one of these um uh Bezos backed

ventures is called Altos Labs, right? uh

$5 billion, a whole bunch of Nobel

winners.

>> I should say that the one of the driving

forces behind it was actually Yuri

Milner, who is another tech billionaire.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah. What are they betting on?

>> I I think they Well, you know,

officially their stance is that they

don't they're not interested in

extending life, but they want to extend

health. And in fact, Rick Clausner,

[clears throat] I was at the opening of

the Altos Lunch in Cambridge, and Rick

Clausner, who's, you know, their chief

scientist, said, um, look, our goal is

not for people to live forever. Our goal

is for everybody to die young after a

long time.

Okay? So, my my immediate reaction was,

if somebody is young, why would they

suddenly die, you know? I mean, this is

a a little bit of a paradox. You're

saying, "I'm going to keep everybody

healthy, and then suddenly they're going

to drop dead." Doesn't seem likely to

me. I think what you'll end up doing is

postpone that, you know, slow decay and

decline uh to a later stage in life. Uh

but anyway, uh that that's a a point of

that's debatable, but that's their

stated goal. M

>> but I have a feeling the people who are

funding it

are interested in two things. One is

they think there's a lot of money in

aging and so you know if you hire the

best scientists you which they did some

of the top scientists in the field uh

were went to Altos because of the

resources and the salary offered was far

better than anything you could get in

academia and and so uh they're their bet

is if we hire some top scientists they

will come up with useful stuff that then

we can monetize eyes in the longevity uh

business. And so that's a a clear, you

know, standard,

you know, investment strategy. But the

other strategy is deep down they think,

well, maybe these guys will crack the

problem and, you know, maybe we'll end

up uh living not forever, but maybe a

much longer time.

>> We have another got a [clears throat]

few other players who tried to crack it.

Kico, New Liit, Brian Armstrong, Brian

Johnson.

What are your reflections?

>> I I I mean, I do know of Brian Johnson,

who's another tech billionaire who

spends $2 million a year uh apparently

on uh his own longevity. He monitors his

aging. He does all sorts of treatments

and so on. And you know, he seems a

pleasant enough guy from watching his

interviews, you know, and I I think it's

fine if he does that. And uh he looks

pretty young for a guy in his late 40s.

Uh but my son is almost 50 and he looks

just as young without any of those

longevity treatments. So, [laughter] so

I, you know, the trouble of Brian

Johnson is no control experiment. is

it's one guy who's mixing up all sorts

of different things and then how do you

even judge whether something is working

or not you know in one person when you

mix everything up?

>> Let's move um tax. So stem cells kind of

deserve their own uh chapter here. Um

you say in your book that an 80year-old

has

the 200s

uh amount of stem cells compared to a

newborn.

Um

now what are the genuine breakthroughs

in this area?

>> Well the the the big breakthrough in

stem cell research will come from

reprogramming.

Okay. So if they can

implement reprogramming safely in humans

and and you know demonstrate first of

all they need to do a lot more research

on animals before

>> it has worked in mice right

>> it has worked in mice but remember it's

very limited experiment and even in mice

the reprogramming is highly

heterogeneous that is even in the same

organ there clusters of cells that get

reprogrammed other cells don't get

reprogrammed Okay. Uh there's one

interesting experiment that's being done

in Boston which is about uh trying to

restore

um you know regeneration of tissue

trying to regenerate eye tissue by

injecting these factors directly into

the eye. [snorts] And uh maybe this can

restore damaged or aging tissue like you

know many diseases are in old age cause

retinal degeneration which can lead to

blindness. So uh and that's actually

been approved for clinical trials. But

again you know many things that work in

mice fail in clinical trials. I mean

that's almost the norm. And so you you

have to you have to simply wait and see

what happens.

>> So hundreds of clinics already sell stem

cell injections.

>> Oh well

I think you know people for example when

scientists found out that you know if

you connected an animal old and young

rat and exchanged their blood supply the

old animal seemed to benefit from the

blood of the young animal. And

immediately there were companies that

were starting to sell young blood, okay,

from to, you know, from they would get

blood from young donors and sell them at

a huge markup to rich uh old men.

>> Do you think uh uh there is something to

it or is it just

>> No, I I I I'm highly skeptical.

>> Okay. Another area is uh

cryopreservation. So basically you

freeze yourself and hopefully you wake

up later. Yeah, this this is currently I

would say in the realm of science

fiction. Uh it's not because

cryopreservation itself has no basis.

For example, we can freeze eggs. We can

freeze even embryos. We can certainly

freeze, you know, lots of even small

larve uh of of worms and so on. So, so

there are many things we can freeze and

the the method of freezing depends on

cooling them to very low temperature

like liquid nitrogen temperature without

the water freezing into ice. Okay?

Because if it freezes into ice, ice is

expands compared to water. So, it

destroys all the tissue around it.

That's why you know if you freeze your

strawberries in your freezer and you

thaw them again, they don't look like

fresh strawberries. Okay? So um the the

the reason you can do it with small

things is because you can transfer the

heat fast away from it fast enough

before the water has a chance to form

ice crystals. So you get essentially uh

you know a a sort of native state.

Now nobody has been able to freeze even

a small animal like a mouse. Okay? And

there was some report about a mouse

brain being frozen. Then when I looked

at it, it's not a whole not even a whole

mouse brain. It's only a a section of a

mouse brain. A thin section of a mouse

brain they've been able to freeze. Okay?

So I would say to these people, when you

can freeze a mouse and thaw it so that

it can run around again, uh then come

and talk to me. I'll be interested.

Until then, it's just, you know, I I I

think of it as nonsense. In the

meantime, if we gave you $3 billion to

conduct research into whatever you

wanted, where would you where would you

have put that money? What's the most

promising part

>> in for you mean for aging research?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. I would put it into three or four

areas. One is we know that caloric

restriction

uh does help

>> with aging. Okay. And and it's been this

has been true in many species. It has

some consequences which are not always

good but maybe you can separate those.

So I would put money into caloric

restriction pathways. That to me is the

most promising short-term goal. Okay.

Then you know we talked about old and

young blood. Well one possibility is to

try to ask what is in old blood and

what's in young blood. what are the

differences and what how do they promote

aging or prevent aging you know so uh so

that's another area I I talked about

cells that sense damage and go into into

this state called scinessence and that's

a natural process that's very useful uh

throughout our lives but as we get older

the the number of scinsesscent cells

increases too much beyond our body's

ability ability to clear them. And so

there are efforts to target scinesscent

cells for destruction. Again, it's a

question of being able to do it in the

right amount and you know and and not

damage all our other cells. Uh so that's

another promising area. And then the

fourth is the part that we talked about

which is cellular reprogramming. And I

think that is perhaps one of the more

exciting long-term goals. and and I

think you know that's another area where

uh you could you could you know do a lot

of useful research

>> now in the meantime um we just want some

more healthy years and so uh where do

where do we start

>> well you know caloric restriction

pathways suggest an obvious answer one

is

>> so this is basically just being hungry

>> no I don't think you need to be hungry I

I you're right that People on a truly

caloricrestricted diet, they're hungry

all the time.

>> Which is why I don't do it.

>> No. And nor do I. Okay. But you can eat

moderately and you can eat, you can try

to not be obese. You can control your

weight. By the way, GLP1 drugs have now

shown all kinds of effects, not just for

preventing diabetes or for extreme

obesity.

>> And so they could be investigated

further as well. And they

>> do you think they'll extend do you think

they'll extend lifetime?

>> They they might uh I don't know about

extending life but they might make it

old age healthier.

>> Uh but but they have consequences. For

example, you have muscle loss, you have

other side effects. So people need to

figure out how to use them safely. You

know, if you're going to try to give it

to healthy people, you have to try to

make it uh safer. But anyway, uh you so

I would say caloric restriction suggests

an obvious answer which is you know

don't overeat. Why does it work?

>> It works because it turns on pathways

that are involved in recycling

uh you know defective uh molecules and

defective organels uh and generally

speak and affects your protein

synthesis. So you don't make you know

misfolded proteins. So there there are

lots of thing there are lots of things

it affects in our metabolism

uh that benefit us as we age. The the

other thing I I I should mention is

sleep.

>> Yeah. because a lot of recycling and

repair happens in our sleep cycle and

people underestimate the importance of

sleep and uh that's another uh you know

very important uh aspect and of course

the third one is exercise and exercise

you know we talked about rejuvenation

and regeneration of tissues and so on

and exercise actually stimulates that

>> let's just sleep first how much do you

sleep

>> I try to get about eight hours of sleep

a day.

>> And you know, if I get less than 7

hours, I don't function very well.

>> There is this saying uh when you're

young, you sneak out of your bedroom to

go to parties, and when you get older,

you sneak out of the parties to get back

to bed. Why

>> I unfortunately [laughter] I was I was I

was a sleepolic, if you like, even when

I was young, you know. So maybe

>> why why do we appre appreciate sleep

more when we get older?

>> I I don't know. Maybe maybe, you know,

we're just not as energetic and not as

you know, we don't have the same stamina

as we did when we were when we were

young. But but as I pointed out, you

know, uh not only I but even my son and

and I I believe also my grandson, uh you

know, we all like our sleep. You know,

I'm not sure we're all night party

animals.

>> No, sleep is beautiful. What about

exercise? How much do you exercise? I

try to ex you know firstly I I ride my

bicycle about uh a few kilometers each

way uh to work every day but apart from

that I go to the gym and I do a

combination of weight training and uh

cardio uh I don't my knee is not great I

used to be a runner but now I uh mostly

do a an elliptical cross trainer uh

which as somebody from Norway you'll

you'll appreciate it sort of mimics

mimics crosscountry skiing, you know,

>> much better for much better for the

joints.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh but talking about Norway, what about

ice bars and cold plunges and zonas?

>> You know, the trouble with all of these

things is they come from one or two

observations which may or may not be

even validated

and there's no control experiment. Okay,

I would be very very skeptical uh of

those sorts of uh treatments. I I doubt

that they do much to be honest.

>> Well, hey, they do a lot for me. I did

both both an ice bath and um and sauna

this morning and it makes me feel uh

>> Oh, if it makes Okay, so let me let me

address that. Anything that makes you

feel good is probably okay, probably

good for you at some at some level

because a lot of it a lot of aging is

related to stress. you know there's I

I'm sure people who are happy probably

uh you know have less stress and less

you know damage to their systems and so

on. I mean up to a point you know if you

like drinking I wouldn't say you know go

go out and get drunk every day. I I'm

not sure that's a good idea but but if

you you know if a cold plunge in a sauna

makes you feel good that's great you

know you should do it.

>> Let's move to to the ethics. Um, now if

we could double the the lifespan

tomorrow, do we do we actually want to?

>> I think it would cause huge changes in

society, not all of which will be good

for society. Uh, for one thing, you

know, changes in society uh require

turnovers of generations. Old

generations don't, you know, older

generations don't voluntarily change

society. Often change is driven by the

young. And so um so you you you might

end up with a very stagnant society. The

other is that as old people as people

get older they accumulate wealth,

influence and power. And of course these

three things go together. And so you

will have the same group of people

controlling society without turnover.

And that is not a recipe for for for

good society. you know because people

who are entrenched in power have no

reason to change and and you know may

not act in the best interests of

everybody and I should point out that if

you look at great discoveries in science

and mathematics they're almost all done

by young people okay and you know people

in their 40s or younger and um you know

yes there are a few exceptions here and

there but even those people often did

great work when they were young. It's

just that they've uh continued. And

interestingly, you know, Ishiguro, the

famous uh novelist, pointed out that

even in literature, this is true that

you know, generally speaking, people who

are younger uh you know, t people tend

to write their greatest works when

they're younger. And one example he gave

was Toltoy. You know, Warren Peace was

written when he was in his 30s. you

know, that's supposed to be this big,

profound novel and yet was not written

by an old man. So, you know, I I I

wonder what it'll do to,

you know, society generally if we have

everybody living for a very long time

and especially combined with drop in

fertility rates where uh you're not

you're not replacing them with young.

>> During COVID, we treated the old people

first. Was that wrong? Well, it wasn't

wrong because they were by far at the

greatest risk. So, uh, you know, the the

likelihood of dying of COVID doubled

every eight years of life, you know,

roughly speaking. And so, an 80-year-old

was many many times more likely to die

than say a 40year-old or a 30-year-old.

So I I I think it it if you wanted to

save lives, you know, that was not not

not a bad thing to do.

>> The rich people already live uh you know

a decade and even some places more than

that longer than the poor.

>> Yeah. 15 years in the US and about 10

years in the UK.

>> So what reflections do you have around

that or or extending it further for rich

people? I I I think it it it creates a

serious problem especially if let's say

you have advances in in aging research

and you have treatments that are highly

sophisticated and expensive. Uh then you

can imagine a two-tier society where

rich people can get all of the latest

and fancy treatments and will live even

longer than they do now. And so the

disparity in power because as I pointed

out people accumulate power and wealth

will be even more and moreover their

children will also be at an advantage.

So you you may end up creating a

multi-tiered society, you know, or at

least a two-tiered society where, you

know, there's one rule for the very rich

and it's not just even wealth, but it's

even years of life and then another uh

situation for uh the rest of society and

especially for the poor.

>> Mickey, let's uh uh

talk a bit about you here at the end.

You trained you grew up in India. you

trained as a physicist and then switched

to biology. Why why is physics uh a good

place to start?

>> Well, I'm not sure

>> or or is it?

>> I you know, I think it uh well, it

didn't hurt me, but I'm not sure it's

necessary. Uh except that one thing

physics does is it trains you very well

in mathematics and in quantitative

thinking. Uh and that can be useful. But

I can tell you physicists who be try to

become biologists without

really becoming biologists but staying

as physicists they don't tend to do very

well. Okay. Uh the best physicists

best people who have gone from physics

to biology are people who stopped being

physicists and really learned how to

think like biologists because biology

involves a different way of thinking.

it's a different scale and different

kinds of problems. uh for example

physicists almost there's no such I

never heard of a control experiment in

physics because the experiment itself is

designed so that you know it it's

designed to be extremely simple and

answer a particular question and in

biology the system is so messy that you

you have to do control experiments you

know and and so that's one one concrete

example but there are many other ways

and for example everything in biology

requires thinking in evolutionary terms

and that's doesn't come quite naturally.

Physics is a generally a highly

reductionist

uh you know science although now you

know many physicists are going into

complex systems and so on but but

traditionally it has been a highly

reductionist science. So I think there

are cultural differences and you have to

bridge those differences if you want to

succeed in making that transition. Do

you think with the advent of AI that

having a broad curriculum uh is more or

less an advantage?

>> My view is having a broad curriculum is

always an advantage because it really

gives you an understanding of the

different areas of science, different

ways of thinking and so on. And uh one

worry I have is that we are going to uh

simply delegate everything to AI which

would be a recipe for making humanity

stupider. Uh I think and more ignorant

and I think what we really should be

doing is is leveraging AI so that it's a

another powerful tool in our armory. I

mean computation was a tool uh you know

all sorts of modern robotics is a tool

uh you know we have all sorts of tools

chemical tools you know biological tools

and and I I think we should think of AI

as another uh powerful tool.

>> What did you learn as a president at the

Royal Society?

>> Well I learned a lot of things. One is

how to convey science to the general

public. how to convey the importance of

science to not only the public but to

the government. And you know I became

president at a very particular moment in

British history when it had voted to

leave the EU and then towards the end of

my term we had the global pandemic. uh

and so you know I had to deal with uh

really quite serious issues as president

and I think uh the fact that I was an

American uh citizen who had come to

Britain and I didn't have a I didn't

grow up here and didn't have a network

of people here I I thought that might

have been a disadvantage but on the

other hand it made me viewed as somebody

with no axe to grind you know somebody

who you know was perhaps an out

something of an outsider but therefore

objective. Uh so it it may have helped

me as much as it hurt me.

>> Why is uh music so important in your

life? And uh your son is a professional

chist and a music professor as well. So

he

>> Yes, you you you've clear you've clearly

done some homework on me [laughter]

anyway. No, we I've always enjoyed music

and I think you know music is one of

those universal uh things. I don't quite

understand.

You know, Steven Pinker in his book sort

of dismissed music. You know, he thought

it was a just an artifact of no

evolutionary significance. I think he's

wrong. And I think music is a a

demonstration of very very high

cognitive ability. And so you can see

how evolutionarily it's it's important.

uh but more than that I think music

really we have evolved to so that music

has some deep uh you know emotional and

physiological triggers in us and you you

know you can easily change a person's

mood with music and affect their

physiology so so I think there's

something profound about music

>> do you think it makes you live longer

>> I don't know but it can certainly make

your life the life you have far more

pleasurable. So,

>> do you think gratitude makes you live

longer?

>> I don't know if I don't know if any of

these things particularly make you live

longer. I I think, you know, some things

you you do because they're worth doing,

not just because everything everything

is not about living longer. It's about

enjoying life while you have it, right?

>> Are you afraid of dying? I think we all

are at at some level but I think you

know I mean my father and my

brother-in-law both died in the last

year and a half and my father was almost

99 and I would say you know he faced you

know when he he was told look now you

only have a few days left uh you know he

was a little bit sad that it was going

to be over but I think he took it

reasonably well and and my

brother-in-law you know he suffered from

sudden diagnosis of pancreatic cancer

but really you know was very

measured and you know sort of rational

about it. So I so I hope if you know not

if but when my time comes that I'll face

it with the same kind of you know

equinimity or rationality that that I

saw in these people.

>> You had a Freudian slip there and said

you know if you die do you do you

believe in afterlife? I no I I I I don't

but uh No, I meant I meant when when I

died. I I don't know if it was a

Freudian slip. It's just it's been uh

tremendous to uh speak with you. What a

what an incredible experience. A big

thank you for taking the time.

>> Thank you very much for having me.