These two slides have become part of my go-to toolkit. They deliver a message of optimism, realism, and pragmatism. In the past 20 years, we’ve made remarkable strides in understanding biological aging. For all their limitations, the Hallmarks of Aging still represent a major milestone in aging research. We are beginning to solve aging. But here’s the reality: at its core, we still fundamentally do not understand aging. Even more importantly, we have no idea how limited our current understanding is. I liken it to a map of the surface of the earth that people were using in 500BC. You might see something that vaguely resembles Europe, a distorted Asia, and an oversized Libya. Sail too far, and you fall off the edge. Maybe that’s about where we are with aging biology. The point is, we need more discovery science – like the Million Molecule Challenge, like new animal models, like multiomic longitudinal data sets from diverse populations - if we ever hope to solve aging. AI won’t solve aging for us. Not yet. The data we have is still too limited. Garbage in, garbage out. Yet, despite being woefully incomplete and inaccurate, the map in 500 BC was still useful. People could trade, explorers could explore, riches were made. Likewise, we know enough about aging today to have an impact. Even with our rudimentary understanding, therapies are being developed - and probably already exist – that can have enormous positive impact on human and companion animal health. 💰 A single year of added healthspan in the U.S. alone could yield $38 trillion in economic gains. Let’s act on what we know today — and invest in what we need for tomorrow. Let’s create a Google Earth for Longevity — high-resolution, comprehensive, and actionable. Together, we can make longer, healthier lives a reality.