The major lines of research Shermer adumbrates involve cryonics, singulatarians, and mind uploading. Here are some excerpts about each from the article:
On Jan. 12, 1967, James Bedford, a psychology professor at Glendale College in California who had just died of cancer, took his first step toward coming back to life. On that day, the professor became the first person ever frozen in cryonic suspension, embedded in liquid nitrogen at minus-321 degrees Fahrenheit.Singulatarians believe that artificial intelligence will expand human capacities so much that we'll reach a point - a technological singularity - where technological growth and human capacity will explode exponentially.
Bedford was neither the first, nor the last, to attempt the impossible — beating death at its own game, according to Shermer’s book.
Cryonics is the process of suspending a just-deceased person in a frozen state until the remedy for what killed them has been discovered. Then, theoretically, the person can be thawed out and cured.
Science will only consider a person properly preserved if they can be revived with all of their memories intact. Many question whether those currently frozen can be successfully revived.
Currently, the cryonic process “vitrifies” the brain, turning it “into a glass-like substance.” Caltech neuroscientist Christof Koch — echoing the opinion of many experts — said it would be “utterly amazing” if this change to the brain’s chemistry didn’t destroy the synapses that hold memories, writes Shermer.
The premier evangelist for the singularity is scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil....Kurzweil believes we’ll reach a point where “the world will change more in a decade than in a thousand centuries, and as the acceleration continues and we reach the singularity, the world will change more in a year than in all pre-singularity history,” writes Shermer. “When that happens, humans will achieve immortality.”Proponents of “mind uploading” go further than Kurzweil, believing that you won’t even need a body or a brain to exist, because one day human consciousness will live on a computer.
“By the 2030s we will have nanobots that can go into a brain non-invasively through the capillaries, connect to our neocortex and basically connect it to a synthetic neocortex that works the same way in the cloud,” he said. “So we’ll have an additional neocortex . . . and we’ll use it . . . to add additional levels of abstraction.”
“As they gain traction in the 2030s, nanobots in the bloodstream will destroy pathogens, remove debris, rid our bodies of clots, clogs and tumors, correct DNA errors and actually reverse the aging process.
“I believe we will reach a point around 2029,” Kurzweil added, “when medical technologies will add one additional year every year to your life expectancy.
The key to uploading the brain is the connectome, which is a comprehensive map of the brain’s neural connections and pathways that equals the sum total of one’s brain function.This, of course, assumes that the conscious mind is simply and solely a function of the material brain which is certainly in dispute among philosophers and scientists. In any case, you can read more on each of these lines of research at the link.
Scientists are currently trying to figure out how to assemble and preserve the connectome of a brain. Once that’s achieved, they will theoretically be able to download a human being’s conscious mind.
I claim no expertise in these matters but the most intriguing and perhaps the most realistic development, at least in the near term, is the treatment of illness and other disorders by means of nanobots in the bloodstream. That could indeed lead to increased life spans and better quality of life throughout one's lifetime.
Nevertheless, if it's immortality one seeks perhaps one should be looking elsewhere than the science lab for it.