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Who Wants to Live Forever? Dr. Stephen Coles on the Secrets of the World's Oldest People

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:00:00 EDT

UCLA's Dr. Stephen Coles studies the oldest people in the world. Hitting the century mark isn't enough to pique his interest because Coles' research focuses on supercentenarians, that is, those at least 110-year-old. Today Coles recognizes only 88 people worldwide as supercententarians, and the list is available at the Gerontology Research Group website.

Dr. Coles sat down with Reason.tv's Ted Balaker to explain why supercententarians live so long, what eventually does them in (it's not old age), and what could be done to help them (and the rest of us) live longer lives.

Topics include: FDA regulations, the Singularity, and immortality.

Approximately 12:20 minutes. Music by Jason Shaw @ audionautix.com.

Shot by Hawk Jensen, Zach Weissmueller and Paul Detrick. Edited by Detrick.

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Would ObamaCare Kill Medical Innovation?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:00:00 EST

As health care reform inches closer to reality, a massively important question becomes even more pressing: Will ObamaCare kill the sorts of medical innovation that makes the United States the leader in bringing new treatments, technology, and procedures to market?

"America is the only industrialized nation that doesn't have a national health plan," says Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), and countless others who want the United States government to guarantee health coverage to all.

Protesters at a recent rally in downtown Los Angeles demanded universal coverage. They told Reason.tv that America is a cruel land where profits come before people.

"It's disgusting!" said one woman. "There should be no profits in health care!" What about those who argue that profits drive medical innovation? "I think that's kind of sick," declared another protester, who wants the U.S. to be more like Canada, where government policy keeps drug prices, and drug company profits, lower than in America.

Many regard the profit motive as cruel, but might it actually produce compassionate results? After all, America has generated vastly more medical innovations than other nations. Included in the long list is the innovation that saved the life of Dave Christensen, construction supervisor, husband, and father. After being diagnosed with cancer, Christensen was lucky enough to be given a then-experimental drug that probably wouldn't have been developed or brought to market in any other country in the world.

If America follows the lead of the rest of the world and clamps down on profits in health care, who will make tomorrow's wonder drugs?

"Drug companies that take big risks may make big profits," says Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie, who hosts the video. "But I say, Good for them. If they're saving lives, I hope they make a killing."

"Would ObamaCare Kill Medical Innovation?" runs about seven minutes. Producer-Writer: Ted Balaker; Producer: Hawk Jensen; Director of Photography: Alex Manning; Associate Producer: Paul Detrick.

Special thanks to the Independence Institute for arranging and underwriting travel to Canada.

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Matt Ridley on Evolution, Economics, and "Ideas Having Sex"

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:00:00 EDT

Matt Ridley, an Oxford-educated zoologist, turned to journalism in 1983 when he got a job as The Economist’s science reporter. He soon became the magazine’s Washington correspondent and eventually served as its American editor.

Ridley has written several acclaimed books that combine clear explanations of complex biology with discussions of the science’s implications for human society. In the reason.tv interview, Ridley discusses some of the themes in The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature; The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation; Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters; and Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, & What Makes Us Human; as well as his forthcoming book which seeks to understand how and why human progress happens.

Paul Feine and Alex Manning interviewed Ridley in the Milton and Rose Friedman Reading Room at Chapman University in Orange, California.

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James P. Pinkerton: Libertarianism in 2058

dan.hayes@reason.org (Dan Hayes) gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:55:00 EDT

How the Rand Era gave way to the Surveillance Era—and what we can do about it. A speculative flight into the future.

This approximately seven-minute interview was conducted by reason.tv's Nick Gillespie and Dan Hayes.

Read the accompanying story at Reason Online now.

Organ Transplants

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:00:00 EDT

When we go to the doctor’s office for a checkup, most of us get annoyed if we have to thumb through old waiting-room magazines for a half-hour. Yet many people wait much longer for something much more important.

Sally Satel, a researcher at The American Enterprise Institute, waited for new life in the form of a kidney transplant, until an unexpected someone stepped forward. Since giving Sally her right kidney, Virginia Postrel, former editor of Reason, has thought a lot about how to increase the supply of kidneys for people like Christina Deleon. Like 75,000 other Americans, Christina has no living donor and has no choice but to endure dialysis and wait—she’s been on the list since 2003.

Postrel and UCLA’s Dr. Gabriel Danovitch take on some common misconceptions about kidney donation, but they disagree sharply on the most controversial proposal—paying people to donate kidneys.

Each year more than 3,000 Americans—a figure comparable to the death tolls from the 9/11 attacks—die waiting for kidneys. Is it time to legalize the sale of kidneys?

Drew Carey investigates what could be done to end the wait for people like Christina, and give them the freedom they deserve.