Google searches for answers to life and death with new company, Calico

Google is already one of the 'go-to' sources in the search for answers to nearly all of life's questions, but now Google CEO Larry Page has announced the startup of a new company called Calico, which will be focused on the search for how we can extend human life span.

Since the company was just announced, there's no word about exactly what Calico will be working on to help us live longer, but in an interview with Time, Page did offer some insight into what the company won't likely be working on:

"One of the things I thought was amazing is that if you solve cancer, you'd add about three years to people's average life expectancy," he said. "We think of solving cancer as this huge thing that'll totally change the world. But when you really take a step back and look at it, yeah, there are many, many tragic cases of cancer, and it's very, very sad, but in the aggregate, it's not as big an advance as you might think."

According to a statement on Google's newsblog, Page says that they'll be looking for "moonshot thinking" about healthcare and biotechnology. That's not surprising, given the company's focus on science innovation with their Google Science Fair and Google Lunar X Prize, and their partnership with Apple and Facebook in the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation earlier this year.

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It won't be a quick-fix they're searching for either, although I'm sure they'll take it if one happens to come along. The timeline they're setting for Calico's search is between 10 and 20 years, according to what Page said in his interview with Time.

(Image courtesy: Stephen Lam/Reuters)

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