This billionaire wants to live forever

From the mythical fountain of youth to the many anti-aging procedures available today: humans have dreamed of internal youth for a long time already. At lot of us perceive aging, illness and death as undesirable outcomes rather than an inherent part of our human experience. And with a rapidly developing technological world, the dream to control our own biology is swiftly becoming a reality. Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson thinks time travel will help us stay young and healthy forever. But not just any kind of time travel, mind you—Johnson will take his 45-year-old body back in time to its prime.

The phrase 'aging gracefully' is certainly not applicable to the entrepreneur. Johnson, 45, is taking the next nature to a very literal extreme. His new project, dubbed "Project Blueprint," involves a complex combination of cutting-edge technology and ancient mystical practices. By using a combination of nanobots, genetic engineering, and meditation techniques, Johnson hopes to reverse the aging process and restore his body to its youthful glory. Prior to establishing Blueprint, Johnson claims he was by controlled by his alter-ego "Evening Bryan", whose self-destructive behaviour led to accelerated aging, decay and disability. With a team of thirty doctors, the entrepreneur is hoping to reverse some of the bodily decay and is using his own body as test specimen. The ultimate goal: reversing his brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis and rectum to those of a healthy 18-year-old.

As for the cost of the project, this year alone, Johnson is reportedly spending at least $2 million of his own money to make it happen. But with a net worth estimated in the billions, he's hardly breaking the bank.But the price for youth is not only atoned in monetary wealth. This endeavour consists of a very intense routine consisting of the consumption of precisely 1,977 calories, partaking in high-intensity workouts multiple times a week, a consistent bedtime after wearing blue light-blocking glasses for two hours, as well as undergoing a handful of rather uncomfortable medical procedures. This routine is not for the faint of the heart. Johnson follows a rigorous daily routine that involves taking around two dozen supplements and medicines, including lycopene and metformin. He carefully prepares his meals and takes great care of his dental hygiene. Johnson's obsession with his health has led him to go to extreme lengths, such as taking thousands of images of his bowels, testing his eyelash length, and measuring the thickness of his carotid artery. He uses electromagnetic pulses to tone hard-to-reach muscles and even tracks the number of his nighttime erections. Although many skeptics question Johnson's take on age-reversion, the entrepreneur claims that his project has so far resulted in an epigenetic age reversal of 5.1 years.

Johnson is hardly alone in this journey. Athletes and celebrities have long engaged in excessive practices of deterring the passage of time, from sitting in a pressurised egg to boost athletic performance, to purchasing a new face every couple of years. Johnson hopes to inspire others to follow him in his pursuit of eternal youth— albeit in a less extreme and costly way. His recently launched website Rejuvenation Olympics, invites humans all over the world to upload their epigenetic data to the platform and analyse their results. A ranking system is displayed on a leaderboard, where participants can keep score with their race against the aging process.

So let’s all wish him luck in his quest to turn back time. Who needs to age gracefully when you can just throw millions at the problem and make it go away? Johnson’s project is not without its skeptics. Many scientists and experts have questioned the feasibility of such a venture, citing the countless failed attempts at anti-aging in the past. Johnson claims that his project has so far resulted in an epigenetic age reversal of 5.1 years.