Through the years, the quest for eternal youth has largely been a province of the rich. The rest of us were just too damn busy foraging for roots and avoiding blood-thirsty aristocrats hunting virgin blood. Of course, we could start freezing our own heads (though it’s far more practical to enlist a third party), but something tells me that “uncontrolled variables” like the off-gassing of frozen veggies may limit the effectiveness of such home jobs. However, if you’re hunting ideas, here is a short history of humanity’s search for permanence, ranked both by originality and clinical effectiveness.
This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2011.