you decide to take a bike that's up to you you don't need bureaucrats in washington telling you what to do tell you what those washington bureaucrats would probably disagree with you. haven't a managing editor for reason dot com in our studios in los angeles well the vice president of china change and paying is wrapping up his u.s. tour today in los angeles he's about ready to go to a basketball game the mayor of l.a. antonio is taking him to see the lakers play but his visit there of course much more than just fun and games cheney has been talking some major business in california where leaders have asked china to invest in major infrastructure projects and it turns out it's not just happening on the west coast as those shows us to rebuild america and repairs some of this crumbling infrastructure there's a good chance we might have to call on china more often to help. los angeles has rolled out the red carpet for the man who is likely the future leader of china but president xi jinping took

a tour of the china shipping terminal where the company just completed a forty seven million dollar expansion at the port of los angeles more than one hundred twenty billion dollars of chinese goods pass through here just last year but trade isn't the only item on the agenda l.a. mayor antonio via rego's is also hoping that the chinese invest in the city's infrastructure including public transportation and ports we used to be number one and infrastructure spending and the quality of or our infrastructure and now we're down to number thirty two behind barbadoes behind span behind lots of different countries. really our infrastructure has been crumbling chinese investment may even help ease some of this l.a. traffic the mayors certainly hopes that it helps to bring jobs to the city as we see federal dollars become more scarce for projects such as road improvement and bridge destruction it's increasingly likely that we'll be seeing china and other

foreign investors fixing our infrastructure how do we sit back and watch china and you're a big build the best bridges and high speed rail roads and gleaming new airports the white house has said that infrastructure improvements are a top priority but the u.s. lags behind europe and china when it comes to infrastructure investment yet ministration has said that chinese firms will play a role in financing infrastructure throughout the u.s. i don't think it's an ideal situation and i would prefer that the money. go to american corporations but the jobs will go to americans and i'm not so simple boost the economy while some welcome the foreign investors some people in los angeles we spoke to aren't so sure we should be so eager for chinese money i think president reagan is probably rolling over in his grave somewhere. as. it's uncomfortable a lot of people figure america is the you know. bill you know so to ask for more is

bad it will create more jobs and it potentially but. this country is in so much that so it's about a. chinese firms are already working on a huge bridge projects in california new york and alaska political leaders defended the contracts claiming chinese companies would be more efficient but there has been criticism over china's work conditions and the devaluation of their currency we can't compete with that now because they're better engineers or because we don't know how to manufacture but because it's not a level playing field we need to get a level playing field here in the u.s. some blame excessive environmental regulations and political bickering in d.c. for our inability to invest more in infrastructure. and investment many see as a key to economic recovery bank in the us competitive and what it seems the chinese are willing to make in los angeles from galindo r t it's

a complex relationship between the two countries on one hand politicians trying to score points blame china for taking our jobs unfair trade practices keeping their currency values too low against the dollar but on the other hand china has saved this country economically time and time again and is one of the best trading partners for the u.s. and this visit by the vice president is more than symbolic this is the reality of our time that the u.s. and china will be close friends or at least business partners for generations to come so what's going on here earlier i spoke with joe weisenthal deputy editor for the business insider for some insight on why american companies can't seem to invest in their own infrastructure take a listen. well i think there's a kind of a complex issue there are a lot of different sort of things to untangle here i mean first of august there is this idea that there are chinese companies that for various reasons can manufacture

pieces of infrastructure faster than american companies there's not really that surprising in this and china is out manufacturing the u.s. in a lot of areas so for a city or a state that's looking for the cheapest source of building something i guess is not surprising that there are often situations where china is more competitive where it's weirder and kind of hard to figure out is this idea that we need china to help invest in domestic infrastructure people exist say that the u.s. is broke but it's really not the case and there would really be nothing except for politics stopping d.c. from investing a lot more in infrastructure in california and other parts of the country so the idea of going with our capital and china to invest in infrastructure in california is really bizarre and i think really expect is an indication mainly of d.c. dysfunction rather than some economic necessity and we should mention you know considering some of these projects in california a lot of you know the workers that will in fact be american workers but when you

think about what going into some of these projects the people at the top the planners a lot of them the bigger people in these projects will be from china that's pretty interesting let's talk about something else that's going on too not just in california. here's something interesting at least that i found it appears china which is the largest outside lender to the u.s. has reduced holdings of u.s. treasuries by about thirty billion dollars they say they instead want to devote more money to assist europe in addressing the debt crisis i don't really ever quote michele bachmann but you know she posed the question you know is china our sugar daddy and maybe the question is is china now everyone sugardaddy. i mean first of all i would actually urge people not to read much into trying to reduce a good holdings of u.s. treasuries by thirty billion that's basically nothing and that and those things are

going to have percent yet and also they've if you look over the past years it kind of undulates and a year or so for example last spring it went down for a while then to pick back up so. about it in terms of giving up on the u.s. so they're not going to lend to the us anymore they're going to lend to europe it's probably not the big problem i actually think it's actually kind of scandalous the idea of europe begging china for help again but for kind of the same reason europe has its own currency you could print money it has plenty of wealth in germany and so on china. it gets about how big it is remains a pretty poor country on a per capita basis the average chinese citizen is way poorer than the average european citizen so i actually think it's kind of an outrage that china is being asked to bear the burden for europe when europe's problems are mostly political and structural and not really about a lack of money per se so i don't think china should be thought of so much as

a sugar daddy and that they're so rich and everyone has to beg for them i think the fact that countries are begging for them for help is really both in the u.s. and in europe a sign of their own dysfunction inability to get their own act together not really about a lack of money i think that's an interesting point and certainly one of the reasons for the credit downgrade earlier in the year it just seemed that business in washington it was so dysfunctional it couldn't be done and what do you see moving forward with the with these this relationship with china certainly the vice president who's in l.a. right now is in iowa yesterday and in washington a few days ago. definitely slated to be the next president of china seen as a little different from the current president hu jintao so talk a little bit about does anything change or does this relationship start to a status quo. well it probably will stay status quo.

that i don't think there's going to be some radical change in the relationship over and or but the thing is things are changing already and the trend is clearly up in terms of the u.s. selling more of the chinese over all the time. the chinese currency for all the talk people have about how weak it is continues to strengthen basically on a daily basis the chinese currency goes up a little bit. so i don't think we're going to see some radical changes you know overnight where suddenly you know they massively hike their currency or whatnot but change is happening and the chinese consumers are growing wealthier and that will be good for a lot of american companies and there a lot of american companies are right now are making a fortune selling in china whether it yum brands in the success of k.f.c. or caterpillar and selling all of these earth moving equipment to china so let me tell you doesn't it is more two way that people give it credit for let me talk real quick about some of the rhetoric that's out there certainly coming from

a lot of places including the white house let's hear from president obama real quickly and then talk about it. you know. american workers you got folks like happily you're the most productive on earth. you can compete with anybody you will work anybody as long as the level as long as the playing field is level you can compete with any worker anywhere any time in china and europe it does not matter if we have a level playing field america will always win because we've got the best workers. you know really optimistic there by the president america will always win because we have the best workers but why then do we see so many situations in which i mean for example that i phone story that came out a few weeks ago that that why america lost the i phone work because the workers are better and more efficient in china talk a little bit about i mean is this rhetoric versus reality or is it just two

different situations yeah i mean probably spinning a bit of the tail there i mean the fact of the matter is for a lot of manufacturing it clearly doesn't make sense to do it in the united states although big manufacturing in the u.s. people never talk about this it continues to grow the manufacturing employment as a percentage of total employment has gone down quite a bit over the last several decades but as an industry american manufacturing continues to be impressive and. expand and actually lately it's expanded much faster than the economy as a whole. so it's complicated it's not a matter of our workers not being good our manufacturing sector not being competitive but there are clearly areas where just for matters of price and environmental regulations and safety it's a lot cheaper to produce in china you know all right joe weisenthal deputy editor

for the business insider in our new york studios all right and that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to our t.v. dot com slash usa or youtube dot com slash r t america will be back here and a half hour see that.

if you. believe. her to mn cyborgs. nothing but fantasy or potential reality. how long can a human being live for. the thousands of years people sought to find an elixir of eternal life to hold to nature's ticking clock. the subject has returned to the stage once more in the twenty first century this time scientific globe or a tree's

a joining the hunt but instead of seeking a fountain of youth there focusing on the power of technology to achieve immortality. this is one of the formulas designed for the fight against aging the substance is called the school or church of island it is named after its creator blood d.m.'s kulacz of he heads the department of genetic engineering of moscow state university . if. you first suggested this age nineteen seventy two. but it was not going until two thousand and five that we put the whole formula of each fighting on paper where you really push them. according to dr school of choice of oxygen is of all things one of the most dangerous substances in the human body he say's that when cells become

oversaturated with active forms of oxygen they become oxidized and this leads to an early death. mirror but as the body produces poisons one of the most malicious poisons is generated at the heart of each cell in the middle condra i'm on the one hand they supply the body with energy on the other they gradually kill us the older we are the more poison we have in our bodies in the form of free radicals. some time ago maxim's father came to the conclusion that there is a mechanism which makes cells a he theory is that a new biological process is set in motion immediately after a mother gives birth this process makes the body destroy itself with the program given that aging is programmed it can be stopped like any other program in that case humans characteristic of old age will be nipped in the bud and we won't age.

this unique footage taken by a digital microscope reveals the nature of human mortality in the second minute of the video sudden flush marks out a dying cell setting off a chain reaction that kills off nearby cells. with a death signal is received by neighboring cells in this experiment and they realize that the cell died only a moment ago and its death was not accidental rather it was the result of a process of the sickle went right across this tiny island of cells it's really quite an unusual sight. dying of old age was uncommon in ancient times people would usually full victim to wild beasts or their enemies but later people came to believe that immortality could be found in faraway lands the arab scientist ibn battuta learned about the fountain of youth in china alexander the great believe that it was in india one theory claims that the real reason he wanted to

kiss famous campaign in the indian subcontinent was salut for the waters of life. abkhazia is a republican the southeastern coast of the black sea in soviet times many people head live to a hundred or more more than two hundred seventy centenarians lived here in the mid twentieth century there was even a quiet composed soley out of the very elderly in the republic only those between seventy to one hundred years of age were allowed to join the choir mostly sang old up cars in songs to the accompaniment of traditional instruments now the choir members a younger than the previous generation could. honor. their was interviewed which i'm eighty one years old and he said that my singing career

spanned sixty five years sometimes i even sing when i'm at home if you are my wife schools me she says why on earth are you singing stop that mumbling good night for i see a tune is racing through my head since i need to sing all the time i say that. in the one nine hundred seventy s. a resident of abkhazia. kill became the main character in a documentary about centenarians home marty told the filmmakers pulled icy water from a mountain streams over himself several times a day throughout his life he was certain the water cleansed people of everything with it the. are really over a hundred years old a hundred and nine now would you like to share this secret or your longevity people must know how to take care of themselves healthy habits help them. to demonstrate

that a one hundred nine year old abkhazian is just as capable as the youngsters. kill mounted a. horse unassisted as the camera crew looked on his destination was the neighboring village of dilip where one of his great grandsons was celebrating his wedding interestingly almost forty years on people in that village still remember. i remember tarp very well. i even recall the good time we had during his great grandsons wedding my grandsons were there to. live is ninety three years old now he has spent most of his life here into the blood him it worked on a collective farm before his long absence from the village during world war two he retired many years ago but he still works in his orchard every day he craft sprouts of new varieties on to old trees these apple trees are going to get

a new lease of life soon. i think i would say it's about time for me to die and lie in the earth peace. but no. life still gives me the strength to be on the move sure when i see anything new after i die well i don't think so and officially the main body of lawmakers in abkhazia is an assembly made up of elders all of the country's historic decisions have been made in this matter in the village of law from the abolition of serfdom to the recent decision to declare abkhazia as independence. people gathering here. to make a decision on any important issue. their rulings became law for the entire people. during the years of soviet government several international

groups of scientists came to a cause yet to find out what made people here live so long their conclusions were intriguingly simple here old people last longer simply because they are always aware of the fact they have a role to play in society. sending centenarians to an old people's home is a disgrace for idea they should be allowed to live in the homes where they were born they should be cared for and loved and that's what they need they should be made happy and they will live a long life. counters elizabeth but tory of hungary in the blood of six hundred fifty young serf women every day the fifteenth century french marshals does numbered more than eight hundred peasant children at a laboratory in his castle to avoid ageing. as it turns out the twentieth century dictator joseph stalin was also anxious about his mortality he had five cottages built on our cars here in the vicinity of the locality and

habited by generations of old ages. the legend has it that during a stroll in his dutch or stalin met a one hundred twenty year old local man he asked him whether it was true that the magic river's a cause here could prevent aging. yes the old man said there were no magic reverse but there was a want a full powers. that prompted. each morning he watched there and drank some water. among them because he is methods of fighting old age has been handed down from generation to generation this is one of the oldest pagan rituals during festivities people boil the hearts of wild beasts and big tubs placed outdoors in the hearts of put on a boiling rock it is believed that he has tasted the heart of

a wild beast strengthens his own during a festive meal elders get the biggest chunks this custom is thought to give them strength and a long life. she who takes gold in words lives as long as killed itself in terms one recipe of an elixir of eternal life from the middle ages. another is a ground a mixture of a one thousand year old toad in a ten thousand year old bed in the shade tell his philosophy doling lived to one hundred twenty two years as a result of taking such mysterious potions. the world including. science technology innovation all the lives developments around russia we've got the future covered.

the a. a true to life in mortal human being will walk the earth in two thousand and forty five this bold claim comes from the russia two thousand and forty five movement in december two thousand and eleven its representatives demonstrated their first

accomplishment on the hard road to immortality this electronic is only the start of a process that hopes to finish with a fully functioning human cybil. this time it seems that this year we will meet again in five years time with my double will be here but i'll be in another room or at home yet you will still feel that you are talking to me and not my double. dmitri it's called does not put his hopes in such dreams instead as a successful businessman he has gathered many scientists doctors and inventors their chief goal is to create the perfect body to give it soul and consciousness of a human being. but him but it and we hope that at some point we just have to perform a painless transfer of the mind of the person falls asleep and wakes up in another body where he feels just as comfortable. dimitri is called was inspired by the

hollywood film surrogates it shows the possibility of creating a human double a surrogate cyborg controlled by the force of thought and imagination would be done without leaving one's home. computers and computer intelligence exceeds human intelligence and then what happens in that sort of perhaps more of the terminator scenario you know what happens when the machines become self-aware enough to realize hey we don't need these people and in fact these people are kind of screwed up the planet. surrogates begins with a lib or a trick creating a replica of a human controlled. by the human mind the surrogates of the future cannot be distinguished from the human counterparts but it's obvious that the first surrogates are a combination of man and machine kevin warrick has volunteered to be

a human cyborg. first imply that i had. here we go this is show you what it looked like so this was the first implant. that's right e.o. frequency identification device and that was implanted in my left arm just up here so pushed in that point and what we use this for was simply as i moved around my building here in reading in england and the computer knew where i was at particular points so i would open doors for me and switched on lights and said hello and having studied the experiences of those who use cybernetic limbs work agreed to more surgery this time a more sophisticated chip will be implanted into his arms nervous to shoot operations like a. little bit nervous but i think much more

a lot more exciting than anything else i really feel loved with doing now he will be. but. it's actually doing some soil where i actually got a choice of the way i think. the operation lasted for several hours rick was worried about whether the new device would be rejected by his body but the surgery was successful as a result the scientist could subject himself to more experimentation. one of the experiments i did was to drive a wilcher around just from my neural signals so it's the sort of thing that a paralyzed person could they could drive themselves in a car just by thinking about moving if you like. robyn f. akon stone a swede lost his right arm a few years ago it was he who was the first patient to test an experimental device called the smart hand scientists connected more than forty senses from this

artificial device to his arm then able him to move his bio nick hand and feel the touch of objects. that precious even can be transposed to a specific area the skin of the remaining head and if you find the right spots to steamy day we know that also the areas of brain court case went back to that. it took robin only one day of training to learn to control the artificial limb as he would his own arm to start with he made the device stimulate the movements of his other hand later he learned how to get it to perform operations on its own. more importantly robin even recalled how it felt when he touched something. bigger put them now i can give orders for my bring to my body which i haven't done in years when you can control your movements.