Ever wish you were a fly?

Sometimes I heard people saying (may be that goes for the Italian language only): "I wish I were a fly" meaning that you could fly undetected and see/hear …whatever.
Now I drop onto a news that would bring another reason for wishing to be like a fly: the possibility of extending your life span by 50%! Considering an average life span of 80 years that would mean to push it up to 120 years! Wow!
The news comes from the University of Bern, Switzerland, where a team of researchers have discovered a gene, they named it ahuizotl after the name of an Atzetc god, that destroys damaged cells. The destroyed cell is soon replaced by a new -and good- cell thus avoiding the progressive degrade of functionality that we call "ageing".
They have tested their discovery on a fly, drosophila melanogaster, and indeed they have seen an increase in the insect life span between 40 and 60%.
Interestingly this gene is quite ubiquitous and yes, we human have got it. Clearly it was "invented" by Nature at a time when there was a common ancestor for both the fly and the humans, that is some 600 millions years ago.
Clearly you cannot expect this discovery to turn into a pill you can swallow tomorrow and increase your life span by 40 years. It will take a few more generations but it is amazing to think that humans are on the brink of extending their life by tweaking with the code of life. So far life has been extended through better food and pure water, and the extension in 200 years has been over 60%!

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.