that his policy of putting america first does not mean america alone. speaking at the world economic forum in switzerland, he rejected accusations of protectionism, but used his address to attack what he described as unfair and predatory global trading practices. the entire board of the us gymnastics authority is to resign in the wake of the scandal involving the sexual abuse of 150 female athletes by the former team doctor, larry nassar. a spokesman said all 18 directors would comply with an instruction by the us olympic committee to stand down. and police in toronto say the murder of a billionaire and his wife was just that. they were found dead in their home in december. newswatch with samira ahmed in 10 minutes, but first up it's click. ah, the streets of san francisco!

mecca for technology innovators and aficionados. a destination where the cult of geek reigns supreme. everyone‘s got that billion—dollar idea here and everyone wants to save the world. the ethos of nothing's impossible runs in the veins and twitter feeds of every twentysomething zuckerberg wannabe. now silicon valley is taking on life's biggest challenge, death. dave lee has been looking at how silicon valley is trying to help us all live longer.

this will be my last mealfor 36 hours. like a growing number of people in silicon valley, i'm about to try fasting, something some here believe could contribute to extending our lifespan. my advice to you, just sleep in really late so you don't have to deal with it! kristen brown is a biotechnology journalist. she tells me living longer is becoming something of an obsession for many techies. we tend to see people notjust being in their body as a machine but talking about it metaphorically as a machine. are they actually making any progress? it's growing so quickly right now, we understand so much more this year than we did last year even but the other thing about science is the more questions you answer, the more questions there are. one incredible idea being tested here can be traced back to this man,

paul bert. in the mid—1800s, he claimed if you took an old mouse and literally stitched it together with a young mouse, the young mouse would become more agile, have a better memory and heal more quickly once it had the young blood flowing through its veins. of course we can't start stitching humans together, but there is a start—up that thinks it can do than expected thing. alkahest is a california based start—up that believes weekly injections of blood plasma from young people could fight the onest of alzheimer's. we treated these patients once a week for four weeks with one unit of plasma, and we found the treatment was safe and very importantly, although it was a short study to see learning and memory improvements, but it was good enough to see some near—term improvements. the team said it found those treated were more capable of basic daily tasks and more aware of their surroundings. encouraging but farfrom conclusive. so far it's only been proven

that this technique works with mice, but it's hoped that extensive human studies might help this team unlock the secret to easily rejuvenating humans. bigger trials are happening soon. we basically fertilising the brain so to speak with a cocktail. to get some answers on whether or not fantastical ideas could actually work, i went to visit one of the world's foremost experts on ageing. if that's true, what's the idea behind that? fasting elicits a response in your body that triggers a protection against many of the diseases associated with age. so there's growing realisation that multiple forms of fasting might actually be beneficial in the long—term. one of them or perhaps outrageous ideas is that you can transfer young blood into an older person and that will rejuvenate and slow the ageing process, is that true? first let's talk about the science in mice. it is actually amazing work. the science is really strong.

now, taking this and bringing it to humans is a completely different story, so the idea for example that one would take human plasma or human plasma product and give it to humans to prevent ageing is, in my opinion, lunacy. finally, my 36 hours were up. i'm not sure it's worth it, the lows i had last night and this morning were awful and to do that regularly i think might lead to a longer life but it certainly wouldn't be a happier one. what could be really interesting, though, is if these companies can recreate the positive effects of fasting without the hard work of having to go without food for such a long period of time. but for now, i think i'm going to choose breakfast. now, we've been looking at various ways to try and extend human life,

possibly indefinitely, but the researchers can't do it yet and so, until they can, there are those who are offering to put your life on pause. marc cieslak has been to arizona to meet the self—preservation society. death and taxes, as the saying goes, are the two things none of us can avoid. this is an interesting infographic on the history of cryonics, which starts actually as far back as 1773, when benjamin franklin thought about the future of america and speculated that maybe he could be pickled in a vat of madeira with his best friends to see how the country came out. what goes on in this space here? obviously this simulates a procedure you would normally perform when somebody dies? exactly. we have to wait for the legal death to be declared. at that point we move the patient from the bed to the ice bath. we're gonna cover them with ice. and at the same time, even though they've been called legally dead, we're gonna restart all kinds of things. we're gonna use a respirator to recover breathing, we will use this mechanical cpr device and the reason we're doing that is that we want to administer a series of different medications to protect the cells. so this is even though the patient themselves is dead at this point?

right. it's very much like when you donate an organ, even though the person has been declared dead that doesn't mean all of the cells are suddenly dead. patients are effectively pumped full of antifreeze to protect their tissue from the freezing process which comes later. it costs up to $200,000 to preserve a full body and $60,000 if somebody just wants their head preserved. so this is our operating room. the patient will be put on this special operating table. it's basically designed to shape the patient for long—term storage. we don't want someone at a very low temperature with their arm sticking out. it's very hard to fit into the capsule. this here as well, this is just for heads? so usually we'll begin on the operating table over there and then we do a neuro separation, a few vertebrae down, and then place the patient‘s cephalon, which is the brain plus the skull, upside down in the neuro ring. essentially the same process, we're going to remove the blood and fluids from the brain and cryo protect them against ice formation. why would people want their head separated from their body? i'm not going to come backjust as a head, i'm going to get a new body

and my view is that, unless i die early in an accident, then maybe i'm 95, 100—years—old if i'm lucky, my body's going to be in lousy shape anyway and the whole thing will have to be regenerated. why go to the extra cost of storing my whole body, which is ten times the volume ofjust my head? the corridors here are lined with photos of people who are already frozen in alcor‘s storage facility. this is the patient care base, where we currently store all of our patients. currently 152. these are all of your patients? yes, all of our patients here. actually about two thirds of them are neuro patients. that means they're just heads? yeah. so about half our living members are whole body. we actually have more neuro patients here. this can actually contain four whole body patients. alcor doesn't have any legal obligation to the people stored here as they've technically donated their bodies to science. what happens if you have a power cut, for instance?

well, we don't need electricity for this. these are passive vessels, they're just gigantic, very expensive thermos flasks and you don't plug your thermos flask into electricity. we just use the liquid nitrogen, which boils off at —320, to maintain that temperature. alcor says it's a non—profit making organisation and that it has 1,150 people signed up for its services, including silicon valley billionaire peter thiel. but what motivates ordinary people to shell out up to $200,000 for cryogenic preservation? back in the uk, derek watkinson has signed himself and his family up for just that via a different outfit called the cryonics institute. i imagine being on my deathbed, dying, and then immediately waking up. if it's gonna work, i'm gonna wake up straightaway, ‘cause the passage of time won't mean anything, because i will be dead. so i'll wake up immediately and hopefully i'll be able to remember things. my memory will be intact, hopefully. who i am.

your whole family is going to be preserved as well? yeah. luckily my wife and daughter are for the idea and they are signed up members of the institute. but is this all too good to be true? we spoke to a neuroscientist who has serious misgivings about the basic foundations of cryonics. you really can't afford to freeze biological tissue until it's been appropriately protected. but unless you take it down to those low temperatures for protection quite quickly, it will continue to decompose. and my problem with the cryonics dream, the wishful thinking contracts that are sold, is that they haven't resolved that conflict. there's no evidence that they can get the antifreeze into all those micro nooks and crannies into the brain and satisfactorily protect it. we put this to alcor, who provided a detailed response: so is this the ultimate

insurance policy then? yeah, but i've not lost anything. a bit of money. lots of money. that's it for the shortcut of click in san francisco. the full—length version is up on iplayerfor you to watch right now and there's more from us on twitter @bbcclick and on facebook throughout the week. thanks very much for watching and we will see you soon. hello and welcome to newswatch. coming up: the reporters questions proms tears from aggrieved father

and anger from viewers. proms tears from aggrieved father and angerfrom viewers. and allegations of sexual harassment reporting. we discussed on last week ‘s programme reporting. we discussed on last week vs programme concerns reporting. we discussed on last week ‘s programme concerns about the fact that bbc news was making too much of reporting on difficulties in the national health service. monday even‘s bulletin led with a long and powerful piece from a thomas about the challenges faced at the university hospital of north tees by staff and patients. this woman is 83. she is struggling to breathe. staff and patients. this woman is 83. she is struggling to breathem never left me. i am 83. she is struggling to breathem never left me. lam in 83. she is struggling to breathem never left me. i am in agony. it is

awful. we do not like it. nobody likes the patience to be in a corridor but i physically have no room to put this patient in. some said this was not the right place for reporting of this kind. now, we all know the nhs is struggling and we understand that some types of these things occur but to go on for 15 minutes in a news programme is not relevant. there are programmes such as not relevant. there are programmes such as panorama not relevant. there are programmes such as panorama for this sort of investigative journalism. such as panorama for this sort of investigativejournalism. the rat other things going on in the world not just the nhs. other things going on in the world notjust the nhs. others agree to the sentiment and took exception to the sentiment and took exception to the tone of the reporting... jonathan bush called it a shameful

report writing at...