You Get Old.
posted by Paid In Full on Oct 23, 2009 - 103 comments

Ben Schott (previously) on The Ages of Man.
posted by HumanComplex on Oct 20, 2009 - 3 comments

Sassy lesbian couple in Florida celebrates 70 years together after having to keep their relationship secret for decades. You go, girls!
posted by digaman on Jul 18, 2009 - 76 comments

The girl who doesn't age.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey on Jun 23, 2009 - 90 comments

How Plastic Surgery Can Give An Older Woman The Face Of A Baby:

She looked a little like … Madonna? Strange, I know, since Madonna and my friend have little in common, at least physically. But when I saw the Big Ciccone on the cover of Vanity Fair a couple of months later, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities: the Mount Rushmore cheekbones, the angular jawline, the smoothed forehead, the plumped skin, the heartlike shape of the face. Their faces didn’t seem pulled tight in that typical face-lift way; they seemed pushed out. Looking at Madonna, I kept thinking of the British expression for reconditioning a saddle: having it "restuffed." Perhaps that’s where she got the idea to have some work done. After the hunt, Madge dismounted her trusty steed and thought, My saddle needs restuffing. And, by George, so does my face!

[more inside]
posted by beaucoupkevin on Aug 6, 2008 - 47 comments

The NYT has a new blog on aging and eldercare. Thanks to the marvels of medical science, our parents are living longer than ever before.The Gray Lady has started a blog catering to the sandwich generation, with topics, so far, ranging from when to take the car keys to personal accounts of eldercare crises. The 290 comments on this post in particular are eye opening and heartbreaking.
posted by mygothlaundry on Jul 11, 2008 - 20 comments

Senior High: A week-long series from the Globe and Mail on life in the Terraces of Baycrest, a retirement home in Toronto. Drawing parallels to high school (the average stay of residents is 4.5 years), stories have ranged from the anxieties about the first day, the problems with cliques and getting snubbed by the cool kids, the ups and downs of the dating scene, and what to do about the awful food in the cafeteria. On Friday the series concludes with graduation, the one area where you might think the analogy would fall apart. [more inside]
posted by cardboard on May 29, 2008 - 17 comments

Young@Heart. What started as a 2006 British television documentary and became an audience favorite at the Los Angeles and Sundance film festivals in 2007 and 2008 opens across the United States this weekand will soon open in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Japan and Australia. The opening sequence showing Eileen Hall , then 92 , singing the 1982 hit from punk-rock group The Clash provided the inspiration for director Stephen Walker when he first saw the group on stage in London in 2005. Besides giving new meaning to lyrics from popular hits, the film is comedic and poignant as it explores friendship, old age and death.
posted by mrducts on Apr 13, 2008 - 24 comments

While the dream of immortality might be as old as mankind, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula (image) seems to be living it:

The hydrozoan Turritopsis nutricula has evolved a remarkable variation on this theme, and in so doing appears to have achieved immortality. The solitary medusa of this species can revert to its polyp stage after becoming sexually mature (Bavestrello et al., 1992; Piraino et al., 1996). In the laboratory, 100% of these medusae regularly undergo this change. Thus, it is possible that organismic death does not occur in this species!

An in-depth research paper.
posted by Foci for Analysis on Jan 30, 2008 - 48 comments

Love in the Time of Dementia Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, has a romance with another woman, and the former justice is thrilled — even visits with the new couple while they hold hands on the porch swing — because it is a relief to see her husband of 55 years so content. (More on their story from AFP.) This is also the plot of the wonderful Alice Munro short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” which became the recent movie Away from Her. [more inside]
posted by GrammarMoses on Nov 19, 2007 - 43 comments

Aubrey de Grey may be wrong but, evidence suggests, he's not nuts. This is a no small assertion. De Grey argues that some people alive today will live in a robust and youthful fashion for 1,000 years.
posted by shotgunbooty on Nov 1, 2007 - 82 comments

A 400 year old clam has been slaughtered by ruthless 'scientists'. How much could this clam have told us about history, about longevity, about life? Probably not much--it's a clam.
posted by hexatron on Oct 28, 2007 - 62 comments

Animated population pyramids project a steady increase in the median age. England and Wales. United States. Canada. China. Japan. "The number of older persons has tripled over the last 50 years; it will more than triple again over the next 50 years." [pdf] There will be a shortage of workers to support the retired and disabled. The looming crisis has been predicted for years. Proposed solutions include robots and immigration. [previously, previously]
posted by desjardins on Aug 29, 2007 - 39 comments

Do You Want To Live Forever? [Google Video - Channel4 documentary] Aubrey de Grey is a genius, a weirdo and predicts the death of death. Don't miss his lectures and some interviews as well. Who is going to be the first immortal MeFite?
posted by homodigitalis on Aug 19, 2007 - 78 comments

Okay, it wasn't exactly banned, but the new Dove ad for their anti-aging products-- featuring tastefully nude older women-- was pre-emptively rejected by broadcast networks. Dove's Campaign For Real Beauty shares reactions, lets you meet the cast, and invites you to discuss. Previously on MetaFilter: Dove's short "Evolution" about how image-manipulation distorts beauty standards.
posted by hermitosis on Jul 18, 2007 - 68 comments

One burger, double neutrons, hold the quarks. Mikhail Shchepinov believes that eating food enhanced with more isotopes can lead to longer lives. What could go wrong?
posted by greatgefilte on Mar 26, 2007 - 21 comments

There are about 250,000 centenarians alive today, including several hundred "supercentarians" aged 110+ years. Jerry Friedman, founder of Earth's Elders Foundation, has spent the past four years on a landmark project to introduce the world to the oldest people on earth. And in a similar endeavor, photographer Mark Story has been capturing portraits and stories of people from around the globe who are Living in Three Centuries.
posted by madamjujujive on Dec 4, 2006 - 16 comments

The Coming Death Shortage We've talked about Aubrey De Grey and gerontology before, but what about the Anna Nicole Smith syndrome and compound interest? This piece from the Atlantic online brings up a scenario that that we may well have to deal with as the maximum possible age increases. Generational warfare, government subsidized longevity treatments ,30 year old adolescence and bio-engineered nations are just some of the things we will live to see if this forecast is accurate. (via Plastic)
posted by daHIFI on Sep 29, 2006 - 52 comments

The evolutionary reason behind senescence^ is one of the great mysteries of biology. Now cancer researchers may have discovered the key to why we age.
posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson on Sep 8, 2006 - 57 comments

Autopsy: Life & Death. Following on from Anatomy for Beginners which concentrated on the anatomy of life, anatomist Dr Gunther von Hagens and pathologist Professor John Lee now turn to the process of understanding death. Full video clips.
posted by srboisvert on Jan 21, 2006 - 11 comments

Death as we know it will die. If you wish to be a prophet, first you must dress the part. No more silk ties or tasseled loafers. Instead, throw on a wrinkled T-shirt, frayed jeans, and dirty sneakers. You should appear somewhat unkempt, as if combs and showers were only for the unenlightened. When you encounter critics, as all prophets do, dismiss them as idiots. Make sure to pepper your conversation with grandiose predictions and remind others of your genius often, lest they forget. Oh, and if possible, grow a very long beard. By these measures, Aubrey de Grey is indeed a prophet. The 42-year-old English biogerontologist has made his name by claiming that some people alive right now could live for 1,000 years or longer. Maybe much longer. Growing old is not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the human condition; rather, it is the result of accumulated damage at the cellular and molecular levels that medical advances will soon be able to prevent — or even reverse — allowing people to go on living pretty much indefinitely.
posted by sharksandwich on Oct 30, 2005 - 43 comments

How To Live Forever: More research suggests that there is no such thing as aging, and reminds me of that quote from the Barbarian Brothers, "there is no such thing as overtraining, there is only undereating and undersleeping." As opposed to Timothy 8. Also, I LOVE the HNRCA database. Get yer mutli people, get it!
posted by ewkpates on Aug 10, 2005 - 45 comments

EMBO's report on Time and Aging (free access) contains an essay wherein the author, Karin Knorr Cetina, from the University of Konstanz, Germany, argues that death and aging used to be major issues that defined what it means to be human and helped us find our place in society by showing us the limits of what is possible to achieve as a human. With the advances in science, particularly biological advances in slowing aging and technological advances in extending human function, we no longer accept our fate. Instead of accepting that we all grow old and die so we should take our place in society, with the expectation that if we contribute, society will take care of us, too, we now have promises being made by science that death and aging are no longer inevitable. Where are we headed, then? If we can no longer find our place by finding the limits of achievement and accepting our place within them, how do we work as a collective?
posted by Mr. Gunn on Jul 25, 2005 - 15 comments

Jamie Zawinskie forsakes Linux. For an Imac.
posted by craniac on Jun 14, 2005 - 71 comments

If rats can distinguish between Japanese and Dutch , why would Elvis have looked like this at age 70?
posted by mcgraw on Jan 9, 2005 - 21 comments

An Octogenarian's Journal Here's what we have to look forward to, if we're lucky.
posted by Photar on Nov 29, 2004 - 9 comments

As the population of the world ages and the prospect for future technologies to either cheat death or increase longevity could we be looking at a schism between the conservative old and the young? Is it possible to heal this rift or should we be looking at alternatives?
posted by longbaugh on Aug 18, 2004 - 28 comments

Extending your life, how to age well. The Seattle Times is running a week long series of articles on how to extend your life. One of the most interesting ideas is calorie restrictive diets. The basic idea is that you consume approximately 30% less calories than you need, and you will live a 30% longer lifespan. The Calorie Restriction Society website can answer any questions you have. Of course any plan that has problems like "Getting used to looking gaunt" and "How do I stop waking up from hunger" seems a little iffy to me.
posted by patrickje on Nov 13, 2003 - 32 comments

How old are you? The Ageless Project lists 1,800 blogs, sorted by the blogger's birthdate.
posted by PrinceValium on Oct 20, 2003 - 19 comments

The Century Project (not suitable for work) 'is a series of nude photographs accompanied by highly personal and moving statements by women whose lives span 100 years. The words and pictures combine to form a powerful statement about body image, society's portrayal of women in the media, sexuality, pornography, and women's health issues. For some, this is pretty controversial stuff...yet the simple fact that women have invited me (a man) to exhibit and speak in Churches (3 times!) and on the campuses of Colleges and Universities, by itself speaks volumes about the way in which Century has been received, and what it's value has been ... '
'Life is at its fullest at 94.' - Mary.
posted by plep on Apr 6, 2003 - 23 comments

"The oldest profession in the world" gains a whole new meaning with this 57-year-old woman's spirited account, in The Spectator (est. 1858) no less, of her successful new career as a prostitute. I must admit a part of me said "Hooray! There's hope for us thirtysomethings yet" but the rest remained highly suspicious or (to be honest) whispered "How pathetic!" Is this ageism or are (much) older women really more attractive nowadays?
posted by Schweppes Girl on Nov 7, 2002 - 29 comments

Facing Time: A family's yearly self-portrait from 1976 to 2002 is both uplifting and unsettling; a bit like human life itself. How does one separate the morbid fascination with aging from the spiritual joy of growth? Not to mention the element of voyeurism... [From ZoneZero, via Eclectica.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Oct 14, 2002 - 30 comments

Stranger is as stranger does Lets see, the older I get, the more eccentric I become. Boy, am I in trouble.
posted by thekorruptor on Jun 28, 2002 - 12 comments

What would you do to live to 150? (more inside)
posted by daver on Jun 3, 2002 - 112 comments

Castration extends life??? Not that I frequent this site, but the current Playboy reading list includes the Sex Lover's Book of Lists by the authors of the "How to Succeed With Women" and "How ... Men" books. Note the factoid in the review, in the 2nd paragraph, "men live longer without testicles (13 years longer, on average...)". (involuntary crossing of legs here) I've never heard that before, and I am not sure I believe it; I am only sure I don't want to believe it.
posted by JParker on Apr 18, 2001 - 11 comments

Scientists discover secrets behind aging process raising the possibility that hormonal therapy could add decades to the human life span. While I'm generally environmentally aware and concerned about overpopulation, all I can think is - sign me up!
posted by quirked on Apr 6, 2001 - 19 comments

130 Years old! See! God may not exist, but technology will outpace religion and THEN I will live FOREVER!
posted by tiaka on Sep 29, 2000 - 14 comments

a newly released u.n. population study suggests that because the birth rates in wealthy countries is low and declining, the worker-retired ratio will not be able to support current social programs. "The report found that Japan would need 10 million immigrants every year for the next 50 years to maintain the current working-age to retirement-age ratio. Without migration, figures show it would be necessary to raise the retirement age to 77 to maintain the ratio."
posted by palegirl on Mar 21, 2000 - 8 comments