Irish Examiner view: Do we really want to live forever?

Search for the elixir of life will pose huge moral dilemmas

Cryogenic chambers at the Cryonics Institute outside of Detroit, USA.

That old joke about young people dreaming of being rich, and rich people dreaming of being young, took another twist when news emerged that mega-billionaires including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos may be among the backers for what is known as a “rejuvenation start-up” in Silicon Valley.

It is in the science and biotech companies of Palo Alto that some of the world’s brightest brains ponder on conundrums such as why a mole rat lives 10 times as long as a mouse and what this tells us about the ability to reverse ageing and halt degenerative disease.