August 5, 2018

Science of Aging

Robin Williams, Globalism on the brink, rapamycin and lifespan

I think seeing a picture of Robin this week on Lance Armstrong’s Instagram page got me thinking about him. I still remember exactly where I was the moment I found out about his death.

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I recently watched Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind on HBO. A lot of emotion and humor in this one, which is how I remember reacting to most of Robin’s performances. Interestingly, my favorite performance of Robin’s was not an especially funny one—Good Will Hunting. I think seeing a picture of Robin this week on Lance Armstrong’s Instagram page got me thinking about him. I still remember exactly where I was the moment I found out about his death.

I also listened to a particularly insightful episode of the Waking Up podcast where Sam Harris hosted Ian Bremmer. They talked about the failure of globalism and the rise of populism, which is pretty hard to ignore in this political climate. I’ve heard lots of people sound off on this topic, but I found this discussion to be more nuanced than most. And I’ve never been accused of not enjoying me some nuance.

On a more uplifting note: here’s a gem from Randy Strong’s group in 2014: Rapamycin-mediated lifespan increase in mice is dose and sex dependent and metabolically distinct from dietary restriction. If you know me, it’s not coming as a shocker that rapamycin and mTOR are on my mind. Every. Single. Day. But, a little more than usual, recently, as I’m working on a chapter for the upcoming book that covers these topics. At current word count, rapa chapter is >6,000 words! Hope the editor is ok with that. Going back to read the classic papers in this space has been a joy.

– Peter

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