A Literally Dreadful Idea: the Death Watch! And What Google Plans to Do About Aging

The idea is dreadful in the original sense of causing dread: a Death Watch is nothing but plain scary. But, philosophically speaking, it helps you realize that your life has a definite time span and that you ought to plan every minute for maximum enjoyment and fulfillment.



See here the article in the Daily Express about the invention of a Swede, inspired by his grandfather's death.



Amazing. 



The Life Watch of my soon-to-be published science  fiction novel, Forever Young, has become a Death Watch in reality!



Can it predict when you'll die? No. Though my fictional Life Watch can... that's because it's an innovation set in the future, about 100 years from now. That's the advantage of fiction over reality! 



Can it ever come to pass? With Google's help, maybe...







Yes, it's no joke. While Big Pharma has temporarily given up on searching for a long-life pill, Google is investigating death and aging: that is what its co-founder Larry Page, age 40, has just announced on his Google Plus page (see here). 



The new company, called Calico is headed by Art Levinson, Chairman and former CEO of Genentech and current Chairman of Apple. The project is certainly far from Google's core internet business and is meant to "tackle aging and illness", as Larry put it. 



The announcement has instantly created waves on the Net. Time dubbed it "Google's new project to solve death" by "dramatically extending life" (see article here):




 




Forbes.com called it "infinity and the search for longevity"(here), Tech Crunch had strong words: "WTF is Calico" and why does Google think "it can defy aging" (here), and in Italy they talk smoothly about Google's "elixir against old age" (here). 




It looks like death and aging have become quite popular topics! 




That certainly should come as no surprise given the dramatic aging of the world population over the next decades.


What's your take? Should we all turn morbid and count the days, hours, minutes and seconds till we die or try and do something about it? I rather prefer Google's approach...











(source of photo: The Tikker Watch, www.theregister.co.uk ; Larry Page via http://www.crunchbase.com/)