5 Ways To Live Forever (And 7 Reasons It Would Suck)

11. I Vant To Drink Your Blerd

Taking a quick detour here, it could be that vampires had the secret to eternal youth all along.

Traditionally, vampires drink the blood of the innocent to maintain their eternal youth, but now scientists are discovering that there might actually be something in it. In experiments with mice, it has been found that a blood transfusion from a younger mouse to an older one can actually improve the health of many of the older mouse's organs, including the brain.

Consuming the blood of young virgins has long been a trope of the horror genre as a way of preserving eternal youth. Some have even gone so far as to do it in real life, with the likes of Alexander Bogdanov, who underwent multiple blood transfusions in the 1920s, reporting miraculous youthful results.

It is thought that the magical restorative powers of young blood may come from a protein called GDF11. This protein is present in much higher quantities in the blood of the younger mice. Not only does this appear to have a positive effect on age-related conditions such as an enlarged heart, but it also increases the number of stem cells and blood vessels in the brains. This last result has lead some scientists to think that this could well be a viable cure for conditions such as Alzheimer's Disease.

There is little evidence, however, that any of these effects can be achieved by drinking blood, so we don't have to worry about an influx of vampiric pensioners any time soon.