79 replies to this topic

[Jay the Avenger]

Why has the total amount dropped from 43.000 to 31.000 ?

And how come the number of donations has dropped so hard the last few weeks?

And also... why is the donor-tab so screwed up all the time? At first, the records in the donor-tab weren't sortable by date anymore. Now, the donor-tab isn't even clickable.

[edit]
Fixed something...

Edited by Jay the Avenger, 02 February 2004 - 08:56 PM.

[Bruce Klein]

Jay, you may wish to check the homepage: http://www.methuselahmouse.org/

Looks as if the prize is now: Prize Total - $43,645.61

[Jay the Avenger]

Yeah I know. But the toteboard now says it's $31.500. All points in my post referred to the toteboard, by the way. Guess I should have stated that more clearly.

While I'm posting... can anybody tell me how fast the X-prize grew in its early days? How big is it now?

I have tried finding this information, but I can't even find it on the x-prize site itself.

Anybody... ?

[kevin]

Jay,

The totals should be the same as they both the toteboard and the site use the same data file for their calculations.. we've changed something so it must have something to do with that..

I'm looking into it now..

[kevin]

Apparently we have some data formatting incompatibilities.. should be fixed now except some a coule of the last entries..

[Jay the Avenger]

While you're at it, could you also fix the donor-tab-bug?

When sorting by date, the list pops back into sorted-by-amount after a short while (about 30 seconds).

[kevin]

I know what you're saying.. I find it annoying as well.. doesn't leave enough time to scan the order before it resets.. I'm afraid I don't have access to the actual code so I can't do anything about it myself but I will put the request in for it to keep the sort order constant..

[bacopa]

I'll see what I can do to get the word out to some of my more wealthier friends although some of them are annoyingly tight with money...

I donated 100, I'll see what my parents can do

I'll contribute more in the future...

[kevin]

This is awesome devon!

The mice whose lives you extend will be very grateful as will be also the people of the future who will look at you as one of the few who had both the resources AND vision to help bring an end to aging.

Obviously your survival instincts are working well..

[bacopa]

I'm just putting my money where my...mouse is?

[Da55id]

Yeah I know. But the toteboard now says it's $31.500. All points in my post referred to the toteboard, by the way. Guess I should have stated that more clearly.

While I'm posting... can anybody tell me how fast the X-prize grew in its early days? How big is it now?

I have tried finding this information, but I can't even find it on the x-prize site itself.

Anybody... ?

We have 44,000 in cash. This is significantly more than X Prize had by this time.

X Prize is using a "hole in one" insurance scheme - they have a $10,000,000 policy that pays off if/when there's a winner. This is their strategy and it is working for them. Their management gets paid and they're worth every penny. MF management doesn't take any money, and we're worth every penny too [thumb]

The premium for this is quite expensive, and we are not taking this route. What is in the MMP is in the MMP.

[reason]

We can thank the generosity and connectivity of the transhumanist community for the fast ramp up on the prize fund.

Who's the insurer who got talked into the X Prize coverage (although I'm sure it looked like a great deal at the time), and how much leverage money did they have to put up to get a $10M policy? One would imagine that that way of doing it will get more expensive once the X Prize is actually won.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org

[Da55id]

Reason just posted a topic called The Three Hundred. Here's some more info on this already amazingly successful effort.

Abdias Ortiz
Reason
Kevin Perrott
Mark Patterson
Charles Stallworth
T. Michael Cooper
David Thompson
and
David McKenzie have all agreed to give $1,000 a year for 25 years to the Methuselah Foundation Prize Fund.
I too have decided to do the same. That's $225,000 in pledges from those who've already donated and we are just NOW announcing the program!

What has prompted this?
After our first 6 months of operations we were all quite drained - so I came to the conclusion that continuous begging for small amounts was not sustainable (no surprise). So all along I've been looking for something that would get us to where we needed to go. Many things have come together, and we think we "have it".

The X Prize has a group of (up to) 100 members of a "New Spirit of Saint Louis" special donor group who each donate $25,000 to the X Prize. They have 80 members (20 slots are left). I got to thinking about how we might use this model - recognizing that people are constantly looking for appropriate personal meaning. I got to thinking about what might be a good model and metaphor for what we're doing.

This is what we've all signed up to:
In ancient Greece, the Medes and Persians under Darius attempted to overrun the country, and to make a very long story short, 300 Spartans who formed the King of Sparta's personal bodyguard held the pass at Thermopylae thus giving the disunited city states in the rest of Greece time to organize into a cohesive force. I suggest that we build an honorable mythos around these valiant people who made this sacrifice in behalf of others. Without their delaying action, there might never have been a western civilization...literally.

William Golding, who wrote about his pilgrimage to the site of the battle in the essay "The Hot Gates," summarized best why the Spartans are remembered:

"I knew now that something real happened here. It is not just that the human spirit reacts directly and beyond all argument to a story of sacrifice and courage, as a wine glass must vibrate to the sound of the violin. It is also because, way back and at the hundredth remove, that company stood in the right line of history. A little of Leonidas lies in the fact that I can go where I like and write what I like. He contributed to set us free."

The Methuselah Foundation "Three Hundred"

How many members - 300 of course
How much do they need to pledge/give? $25,000 over the course of 25 years as any of
1) lump sum at the beginning
2) $1,000 a year by end of year each year,
3) $85 a month
4) $2.75 a day or one visit to Starbucks ;-)

Why 300?

As we fill the "ranks", it will add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the prize fund each year.
The name of every individual Spartan who died at Thermopylae was remembered for as long as ancient Sparta endured. Their names were engraved on a stone tablet in Sparta that could still be read over seven centuries later. We will do the same on our Website, and will also do a physical memorial of our own, or in association with something like "The Long Now" Foundation .

As I said at the beginning, when the folks above heard the idea, they not only thought it was a good idea, but totally bowled me over by instantly making their committments. They are the first of "The 300" and look forward to many of you joining their ranks! We hope to have 40 individuals signed on by the end of the year. This would put our prospective funding above the one million mark. We have 9 - only 31 to go! http://www.methusela...hreeHundred.htm

Cheers,
Dave Gobel
Chairman
The Methuselah Foundation

[adbatstone]

I don't have a credit card, so I'm wondering, can you send an international money order to the MMP? I'd like to contribute $1000 sometime this year (as soon as I've saved it up, LOL).

[Da55id]

Hi - Yes, int'l money order is fine. Thanks for considering this! You'll be in amazingly good company.

[Mind]

Do these researchers know about the Methuselah Mouse Prize?

ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:44 p.m. April 12, 2004

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – A dwarf mouse named Yoda has celebrated his fourth birthday, making him the oldest of his kind and far beyond 100 in human years, the University of Michigan Medical School says.

Yoda owes his longevity to genetic modifications that affected his pituitary and thyroid glands and reduced insulin production – and which left him a third smaller than an average mouse and very sensitive to cold.

On the other hand, at the human equivalent of about 136 years, Yoda is still mobile, sexually active and "looking good," said Dr. Richard A. Miller, associate director of research at the school's geriatrics center.

Yoda lives in a carefully maintained lab with roughly 100 other male geriatric mice being used for a lifespan study. An average lab mouse lives slightly more than two years.

Yoda's cage mate, Princess Leia, is a much larger female who uses her body warmth to keep the dwarf mouse from freezing to death.

Researchers are studying the genetic mutants to determine how altered hormone levels can slow the aging process, with the hope of figuring out which methods, if any, eventually could be applied to humans.

On the Net:

University of Michigan Medical School: www.med.umich.edu/medschool

[Da55id]

Yep - Check out betterhumans' site tomorrow (I think)

[reason]

Showed up on Wired in the sidebar:

Methuselah Mouse
Yoda, a genetically modified mouse, turned 4 this week, which is the human equivalent of 136 years. Not only that, but Yoda is still perky, mobile and sexually active. (And how many 136-year olds can say that?) Yoda, who lives in a carefully monitored lab at the University of Michigan with 100 other geriatric mice, owes his longevity to genetic modifications that affected his pituitary and thyroid glands and reduced insulin production — and which left him a third smaller than an average mouse and very sensitive to cold. To prevent him from freezing to death, Yoda lives with a much larger female mouse, Princess Leia, who snuggles with him to keep him warm. Any way you look at it, the guy has it made.
-- Tony Long

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org/

[kevin]

Link: http://www.nytimes.c...nce/13MOUS.html

---

At 4 years old Yoda, left, is the equivalent of a 136-year-old human. His companion, Princess Leia, is responsible for keeping him warm.

In Michigan, a Milestone for a Mouse Methuselah
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

Published: April 13, 2004

Could the elusive secret of longevity be a diet heavy in cheese?

Probably not. But scientists are celebrating the birthday of the world's oldest known living mouse. The animal, a dwarf mouse named Yoda, turned 4 on Saturday, or roughly 136 in human years.

The average life span of a laboratory mouse is just over two years. A number of other mice have fallen just short of the five-year mark, but Yoda is the first to make it to four years on a diet that was not calorically restricted.

"It would amaze me if he survived more than another 6 months, but we can always hope," said Dr. Richard A. Miller, associate director of the geriatric center at the University of Michigan Medical School, where Yoda was raised. "We don't want to jinx him. If a person is in their 90's or 100's, their life span is usually only another year or so."

Though not a calorie counter, Yoda, like other dwarf mice, has a genetic mutation that chokes off production of growth and thyroid hormones. Dwarf mice tend to grow to only about a third the size of normal mice, which helps them live about 40 percent longer.

"It's similar to small dogs," Dr. Miller said. "They have low levels of growth hormone, though they're always longer-lived than Great Danes and other large dogs."

Dwarf mice are usually so small and frail that they require the constant company of a larger mouse. Without baby-sitter mice to keep them warm, Dr. Miller said, dwarfs would freeze to death. But they also can avoid the diseases of old age until extremely late in life. While another mouse might have reached old age and developed arthritis or cancer, a dwarf mouse born at the same time might still be in the equivalent of middle-aged health.

By studying hormonal changes in dwarf mice, Dr. Miller said, scientists may be able to slow the aging process in humans as well.

"This is not a lead-in for gene therapy, but the idea is to find out what the key controlling chemicals are so the problems people see now in their 60's or 70's could be delayed for another 20 or 30 years," he added.

[Jay the Avenger]

I noticed the Kurzweil site just got RSS-feed. How about adding it to the toteboard?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/rss/