Aging & evolutionary biology
Josh Mitteldorf is best known for promoting the theory that aging is not “wearing out” but rather an evolved program that limits lifespan. The surprising fact that our bodies are genetically programmed to age and to die offers an enormous opportunity for medical intervention. He began blogging about aging on this site in 2012. His guidance for a long life is at AgingAdvice.org. His two books on aging are available at Amazon and elsewhere.
Mitteldorf’s PhD is in astrophysics. Since about 2020, he has taken up a new challenge as curator and critic of science on the fringe, writing about promising science that the science establishment has unjustly neglected.
In other areas of life, Mitteldorf’s two daughters were among the first girls to be adopted from China in the 1980s. He has taught a weekly yoga class for fifty years. He is an avid amateur musician, playing piano in chamber groups, French horn in community orchestras. Follow his other writing at mitteldorf.substack.com, and listen to his poetry on YouTube.
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My title is taken from a well-known but less-well-authenticated quote from Max Planck: “Science progresses funeral by funeral.” Planck discovered the quantum principle in 1899, before the the physics world was ready for it.
Aug 7, 2024
Do populations in nature self-regulate? I believe so, and have adduced evidence from field studies and from computer simulations.
Jun 5, 2024
Vaccines are all designed to immunize against a specific disease. But vaccines also have important non-specific effects.
Jun 4, 2024
A study out of Nanjing University last month brings exosome rejuvenation to the mainstream of researchers with broad new evidence and some speculations on mechanisms.
May 27, 2024
One worm in a thousand is not a hermaphrodite but a male. It lays no eggs, but produces oodles of sperm, which can fertilize the eggs of a hermaphrodite worm.
May 14, 2024
Spermidine is found naturally in many foods. Blood levels decline with age. Supplementation extends lifespan and healthspan in various species, and lowers mortality in human trials.
May 7, 2024
A young Mark Twain had a vivid dream in which his brother died in an explosion. As recounted in a biography by Albert Paine, he was thoroughly shaken the next day.
Mar 18, 2024
We now have many mummies and skeletons, mostly from western South America, that are sort of human-like, but don’t fit into any mainstream history of humanity.
Mar 2, 2024
The past causes the future. The future is undetermined, and cannot reach back to have an effect on the past.
Feb 12, 2024
Bioweapons research was responsible for global devastation on the scale of a world war.
Jan 15, 2024
The problem of combining General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics in a self-consistent theory is so difficult that it has defied the best minds in physics for 75 years.
Jan 5, 2024
Richard Dolan was first to use the phrase, though I first heard it from Jason Jorjani.
Dec 30, 2023
