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The End of Death

Writer's picture: Mishkat BhattacharyaMishkat Bhattacharya

Intro


A famous saying, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, is that in life the only things that are certain are death and taxes. Since it has been firmly established that taxes can never be abolished, it seems that the focus has now shifted to doing away with death.


That's meant to be a joke, but the topic has been considered seriously by the recent book Why We Die by Venki Ramakrishnan, who shared the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 2009. Below is a brief review without any essential spoilers (I hope).


What is included


The book covers a lot of ground, treating gerontological topics like


i) genes (much material here, including on cloning, twins, etc.)

ii) proteins (the author's immediate expertise)

iii) telomeres ( chromosomal end-caps which have a complicated relation with aging)

iv) how death is the price we pay for sex (for this you have to read the book)

v) swapping in young blood (literally, injecting...)

vi) the relationship between aging and cancer (via genetics)

vii) cryonics (works better for lower life forms!)

viii) low carb diets (they help)

ix) hydra, jellyfish (both immortal) and the 500-year long-lived Greenland shark (natural examples of postponed death)

x) menopause (interesting and complex analysis here)


The book also refers to a 4-stage plan for coping with death, attributed to the philosopher Stephen Cave, which is worth considering, in my opinion.


Where I disagreed (but who am I to argue with a Nobel laureate?)


A few points, on which my own meager knowledge on the subject came into conflict with the book's statements:


i) At one place the book says that there is no proof that animals are aware of their impending death. Maybe it means when they are healthy, because I have heard as well as read of dogs etc., who have 'a knowing look in their eyes', for example, when they are dying from cancer, etc. This evidence, of course, is anecdotal.


ii) At another place, it is stated that we cannot become immortal by continuously swapping out parts. The engineer in me rebelled against this conclusion; yes, we don't know how to implement this now, but there's hope - horse valves and pig kidneys are already here and artificial organs are projected to come in 20-30 years.


iii) In the chapter on the implications of immortality - or at least longer life spans - the book bemoans the fact that tenured faculty in the US work till even their nineties, though they are (apparently) no longer as creative and bold as their junior colleagues. This holds up the next generation of scientists from getting jobs. I will write more extensively about this on another post, but for now I must register a vote against the motion - please let us enjoy tenure, an earthly form of immortality.


Summary


The book concludes that we live in an interesting time, when immortality, though hardly achievable, is beginning to reveal its secrets to us: in academia, hundreds of thousands of research articles have been published in the last decade, while the antiaging industry has received tens of billions of dollars of investment aimed at pushing the current 120-year limit on the human lifespan.


The book is: based on science, well organized, authoritative, thought provoking, and funny (esp. when describing the anti-aging industry + market). I was looking for an accessible but 'popular' text that I could use as a framework for studying the topic, and I think this book suits the purpose well. I intend to study it further, when I have the time to get some more biology under my belt.



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