The immortalists, David M. Friedman

The true story of how, 75 years ago, two men--one the most famous man in the world, the other thought by many to be the world''s smartest--searched for a scientific path to a life without death. In 1927 Lindbergh was the first person to fly non-stop from New York to Paris, a feat most people then thought impossible. In 1930, Lindbergh met Alexis Carrel, then regarded as the most brilliant doctor who ever lived.

Lindbergh''s sister-in-law suffered from a heart condition that her doctors deemed hopeless, and he didn''t understand why they could not simply replace her heart with a mechanical pump. Carrel himself was pursuing similar ideas, and a friendship and scientific partnership began, attempting to build a machine that could keep whole organs alive. They thought that this process could potentially render certain chosen human beings immortal.