Would you like to live to 200? To 500? To 1,000?Such a question may strike you as absurd. But with our new and still developing technology, science may stretch the life span to limits unheard of since biblical days.
We are just at the beginning stages of genetic engineering, and ahead of us may life a brave new world. Predictions are that technicians will be able to snip out our bad DNA and replace it with more compliant bits. The caps at the end s of our chromosomes, the telomeres, shrink as we age, causing the cells to die. An enzyme called telomerase may be able to modify this process, allowing cells to reproduce many more times that they currently are able to ( Demidov 2005).
By manipulating genes, scientists have already been able to extend the life span of worms by six times. Humans have these same genes. A human life span six times longer that what we now have would take the longest living people to over 500(Chase 2003). We are only peering over the edge of the future, glimpsing what might be possible. Some optimistic geneticists predict that some people currently alive will live 1,000 years or longer (Gorman 2003). Now that's way too long.
Some geneticists say that we should think of our body as being like a house (Gorman 2003). A house keeps standing, not because it is built to last forever, but people keep repairing it. This is what science will allow us to do with our bodies. In the future, we will grow spare body parts. From the same stem cells will come livers, hearts, kidneys, fingers. As parts of our body wear out, we'll simply replace them with new ones.
In grade school, many of us heard stories about Ponce de Leon, an explorer from Spain who searched fro the fountain of youth. He eventually discoverd Florida, but the fountain of youth eluded him. In our perpetual search for immortality, could we be discovering what eluded Ponce de Leon?
Finally, is the real issue how can we live longer or how can we live better?
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5 Reactions to the article:
hi vhiel.. glad we're both part of the merlin club.
about your post - as long as i get to live until my 80th birthday, i am already fine with that. i don't want to live until 100 or 500, for that'll be very sad - especially if the people i knew have all left me. i hope i could get to live until 80.
Thanks for dropping by jenn.. im glad I joined also the club... i get to read others posting as well without having to do a lot of hopping.. lol..
and I agree with you.. its no fun anymore if everybody else that you knew are gone. I'm happy enough if I get to atleast see my grandkids and their babies.. maybe 70 or 80 is alright..
just like jenn, i dont think i would want to live THAT long and old. not unless if my presence is still needed, then i think its ok. but still, i think being very old and still alive wouldnt really make me happy. baka naman if that happens, may over population na kasi walang namamatay. hehehe
found this pala through Merlin Club. :)
i really don't think about this question. i just try to make each day memorable, fruitful, happy, fulfilling. no big worries.
by the way, thank you for leaving a print in my blog. hope to see you there again.
Gorman is freaky.
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