谷歌新研究：人類活500歲不是夢

Google has invested in taxi firms, smart thermostats and even artificial intelligence but it is also setting its sights on immortality - or at least increasing our lives five-fold.
谷歌的投資項目不但囊括出租車公司、智能恒溫器甚至人工智能程序，他們還開始研究“長生不老”，或者說，如何能讓我們的壽命至少延長五倍。

In an interview with Bloomberg, Google Ventures' president Bill Maris said he thinks it's possible to live to 500 years old.
谷歌風投的執行董事比爾·馬里斯在接受彭博通訊社的采訪時說：“人類是有可能活到500歲的。”

And this will be helped by medical breakthroughs as well as a rise in biomechanics.
這一目標的實現將借助于醫學方面的突破和生物力學的崛起。

He has already ploughed money into genetics firms and cancer diagnostic startups and said: 'We have the tools in the life sciences to achieve anything that you have the audacity to envision. I just hope to live long enough not to die.'
馬里斯已經投資了研究基因遺傳的公司和腫瘤診斷公司，他說：“我們能通過生命科學的方法實現任何你能想象到的事情。我只希望能活得更久，不想死去。”

Mr Maris founded Google Ventures in 2009 and oversees all of the fund’s global activities.
2009年，馬里斯建立了谷歌風投，并監管著全球的投資活動。

He studied neuroscience at Middlebury College and conducted neurobiology research at Duke University.
馬里斯曾在米德爾伯利學院學習神經科學專業，并在杜克大學進行神經生物學研究。

Elsewhere he has advised Aurolab in the development of a hydrophobic acrylic lens for cataract blindness, and helped develop Google’s Calico project.
馬里斯還在Aurolab公司為白內障盲開發防水丙烯酸眼球水晶體的過程中提供建議，同時推動谷歌Calico項目的發展。

Calico is a research and development company set up in 2013 by Google and Apple to tackle 'ageing and associated diseases.'
2013年，谷歌和蘋果公司建立了Calico研究與開發公司，致力于研究“衰老與相關疾病”。

Google co-founder Larry Page said the project would focus on 'health, wellbeing and longevity' and last September Calico partnered with AbbVie to open a research centre into neurodegeneration and cancer.
谷歌的共同創始人拉里·佩奇 說，這個項目專注于“健康、幸福與長壽”。去年9月，Calico與艾博維公司合作開辦了一個神經退化與癌癥研究中心。

Although these firms are focused on extending life naturally, there is also a group that believes machines will be the key to extending out lives beyond 120 - an age that has been quoted as the 'real absolute limit to human lifespan'.
這些公司專注于用自然的方式延長人類壽命，但還有一群人相信機械是將壽命延長至120歲以上的關鍵，因為120歲可以說是“人類最長壽命的絕對極限”。

Google's director of engineering, and colleague of Mr Maris, Ray Kurzweil has previously said that in just over 30 years humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal - an event called singularity.
谷歌技術總監雷·庫茲韋爾曾預言，在未來30年，人類能夠把他們的大腦上傳至電腦從而實現永生，這個過程稱為“奇點”。

At the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York last year, Mr Kurzweil claimed that the biological parts of our body will be replaced with mechanical parts and this could happen as early as 2100.
去年，在紐約舉行的全球未來2045國際會議上，庫茲韋爾稱，最快在2100年，機械肢體將代替人類的生物肢體。

Vocabulary

biomechanics：生物力學
audacity：大膽無畏
cataract：白內障
neurodegeneration：神經退化

（譯者：梁舒婷SCNU 編輯：馬文英）