Futures this week is pleased to welcome Tom Easton and Jack McDevitt with their timely story Blood will tell. Jack previously appeared in Futures back in 2006 with a story about a US election called The candidate. In this week’s tale the pair team up to examine a remarkable business opportunity. Here they reveal the origins of the tale — as always, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Blood will tell

We all know that conferences are great places to forge collaborations. Jack and I are old friends, but it wasn’t till we were having lunch at the World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, (far from our homes in Georgia and Massachusetts) that we decided to collaborate at last. I was telling him about the recent work on infusing young plasma into old mice (stemming from older parabiosis work) and finding rejuvenating effects. I noted that researchers are looking for the ‘active ingredient’ and finding candidates. Then I offered a bet that one’s own young plasma would work better than someone else’s. He was telling me about a panel on time travel (remember: science fiction convention) he was going to be on. We looked at each other and said, “Hmmm…”

The idea that autologous plasma would work better than heterologous would not be hard to test using same and different strains of inbred mice. Testing the idea on people would take much longer. But that need not stop entrepreneurs. Just think of cryonics: the idea that freezing your body or head until whatever ails you can be cured (along with freezer burn) makes a certain amount of intuitive sense but it has never been tested. Banking your own plasma when young in the hope that it will rejuvenate you in old age has a good deal more support. In fact I’m surprised that no one has yet set up a company to do it.

Of course, now that Jack and I have described the basic business plan, we do insist on a cut of the action.

And no, we did not miss the possibility that using time travel to get your own (or a relative’s) young plasma could explain vampires.