Sad about an iconic actor or musician's death? Noticing that they aren't much older than you are? For the first time in human history, we can take practical steps to save our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Yet despite the enormous promise of anti-aging/cryonics technology to vastly expand our healthy lifespans, the amount of money devoted to research in these areas is tiny. Even small donations can have a hugely disproportionate impact. Here are three organizations working in this area that I support. If you can donate to just one, I think the Brain Preservation Foundation has the highest impact per dollar spent.
http://www.brainpreservation.org/
"If the world continues this accelerated pace there is every reason to expect that in a few hundred years we will have a complete science of how the brain gives rise to mind, and the technological prowess to routinely upload memories and minds. This will be a world whose technological advancements and material prosperity are as far beyond us today as we are beyond the ancient Greeks. Citizens of that future world will have conquered disease and death and overcome countless other biological limitations. They will viscerally understand what today’s neuroscience textbooks try to convey: The mind is computational, and a person’s unique memories and personality are encoded in the pattern of physical connections between neurons.
From that vantage point, future generations will ask:
“Why didn’t humanity preserve its most priceless possession – the human brain?”
In 2010 we established the Brain Preservation Foundation with an eye to this future perspective."
http://www.alcor.org/
"Cryonics is an experimental procedure that preserves a human being using the best available technology for the purpose of saving his/her life. We believe medical technology will advance further in coming decades than it has in the past several centuries, enabling it to heal damage at the cellular and molecular levels and to restore full physical and mental health."
http://www.sens.org/
"SENS Research Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity that is transforming the way the world researches and treats age-related disease.
The research we fund at universities around the world and at our own Research Center uses regenerative medicine to repair the damage underlying the diseases of aging. Our goal is to help build the industry that will cure these diseases."
http://www.brainpreservation.org/
"If the world continues this accelerated pace there is every reason to expect that in a few hundred years we will have a complete science of how the brain gives rise to mind, and the technological prowess to routinely upload memories and minds. This will be a world whose technological advancements and material prosperity are as far beyond us today as we are beyond the ancient Greeks. Citizens of that future world will have conquered disease and death and overcome countless other biological limitations. They will viscerally understand what today’s neuroscience textbooks try to convey: The mind is computational, and a person’s unique memories and personality are encoded in the pattern of physical connections between neurons.
From that vantage point, future generations will ask:
“Why didn’t humanity preserve its most priceless possession – the human brain?”
In 2010 we established the Brain Preservation Foundation with an eye to this future perspective."
http://www.alcor.org/
"Cryonics is an experimental procedure that preserves a human being using the best available technology for the purpose of saving his/her life. We believe medical technology will advance further in coming decades than it has in the past several centuries, enabling it to heal damage at the cellular and molecular levels and to restore full physical and mental health."
http://www.sens.org/
"SENS Research Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity that is transforming the way the world researches and treats age-related disease.
The research we fund at universities around the world and at our own Research Center uses regenerative medicine to repair the damage underlying the diseases of aging. Our goal is to help build the industry that will cure these diseases."