Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality

The dream of immortality is as old as mankind. Today, a charismatic and eccentric group of scientists, medical researchers, entrepreneurs, and philosophers believe that it is not only possible, but attainable in our own time. Could they be right? Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Weiner takes the reader on a whirlwind intellectual quest to find out. From Berkeley to the Bronx, from Cambridge University to Dante's Tomb in Ravenna, he explains the mind-blowing science behind the latest research and meets the leading minds in the field, including the controversial Aubrey de Grey, a garrulous and brilliant Englishman who believes someone alive today will live for a thousand years - and who himself bears more than a passing resemblance to Methuselah, at 969 years, the oldest man in the Bible. Long for This World is a rollicking scientific adventure story and science writing of the highest order.