Let’s start by confirming the fact that what scientists managed to achieve with those mice will probably never be emulated in humans.

Call me a sceptic, but let’s call off all hope for any sort of bona fide ‘reverse-aging treatment’ for humans in the foreseeable future. I mean, we’re so far away from translating this experiment from mice to humans, we’ll all be dead by the time it’s a realistic occurrence. These Harvard scientists were barely capable of reversing age, never mind resurrection. So, sit back down, close your mouth back up and calm down for now.

However, back to a hypothetical world we go.

Reverse-aging would make life unfair. More unfair than it already is. As a final year student currently looking for any dregs of the job market that I can call ‘employment’, I do not want to be competing against an 140 year old for jobs. He’d absolutely hammer me in a head-to-head interview situation with all the wisdom he’s gained from, quite frankly, more than his fair share of life. I’m ignorant and immature enough, thank you very much. I count on people around me being more naïve, insensitive and uncultured than myself. Life runs in relativity: stand next to Peter Crouch, you’re going to look short (like a Borrower in my case); stand next to Graham Norton, you’re going to look positively butch (I’d probably struggle with this one); stand next to Katie Price, you’re going to seem like Einstein (I’m a Biologist and Matt’s a Material Scientist, this last analogy isn’t working).

I look forward to the mid-life crisis, bus seat offerings and colostomy bags

Sexual selection is one of the evolutionary drivers of the human race’s sustainment. It’d be horrifically unfair if the female population were forever subject to a 20 year old Hugh Heffner and his planet-sized libido. No other man would stand a chance. Hugh would end up being the father to even more children than he probably already is. Does that sound like utopia to you?

Growing old doesn’t scare me. Having youth on my side is great and all that. But I look forward to the mid-life crisis, bus seat offerings and colostomy bags. I hate having to wash myself in the bath; when you’re old, someone else does it for you. Life as an elder statesman sounds like THE life, and if fate wishes to take me there, who am I stop it? Plus, I’ve planned my mid-life crisis and I’m buying myself three in-house prostitutes and whatever four-seater Volkswagen is all the rage by then. There are so many benefits of getting old, see?

Having youth in a pill sounds great, but it’s not for me thanks. Oh, why am I bothering? This argument is futile. It won’t bloody happen anyway