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More than two decades ago, researchers in the fields of aging and molecular genetics began to unlock clues to the
genes, mechanisms, and processes of aging. And
by 1993, Cynthia Kenyon and her colleagues succeeded in doubling the lifespan of an experimental
laboratory
organism,
Caenorhabditis elegans
(from
20 days to 40 days)
And by 2005, Kenyon was able to report
further work that had allowed researchers to multiply the
lifespan of individuals within this same species six-fold
(from
20 days to 120 days)
An equivalent six-fold increase in
humans would equal
approximately 500 years
(a) and at the same time, of course, other
researchers
have been
investigating life extension by means
such as calorie restriction, resveratrol, and other
mechanisms
(b) furthermore, other research has found that
many
of the same or similar mechanisms have worked
in other
laboratory organisms such as flies, mice,
and yeast
(c) in addition, ongoing research in health and medicine
(which promise to prevent and/or cure disease) may
also reward
us with dramatic increases in longevity
So where might all of this be heading?
At what pace? And what far-reaching implications may
await?
First, let us consider our track-record over
the past 100 years as scientists and scholars have pursued one new field and
technology after another. Again and again, we
have proceeded from an initial breakthrough to rapid
advances and proliferation with
breathtaking speed.
Think, for example, of the advances and trajectories
seen in computers, communications, medicine, DNA
technologies, and genomics
For now, however, think
of the Wright brothers, who in 1903 flew,
for the first time, a heavier-than-air vehicle for twelve seconds and 120 feet.
Consider next that just sixty-six years later
the astronauts
of
Apollo 11
traveled to the moon and back
in a little over one week
Which brings us back to 1993 and the initial doubling of lifespan in individual members of C. elegans.
If we envision,
beginning in 1993,
a life-extension progression
similar to that seen in aeronautics
then 1993, when extended
sixty-six
years into the future,
would bring us to 2059
Even if a real possibility of a six-fold/500 year life-extension for humans were to (or might actually) exist,
the exact details and the exact amount of lengthening
are of less importance than the fact that
(a) such research is occurring, and
(b) that some degrees of dramatic
success may not
just be possible,
but may well be probable
Thus, if even a fraction of that
500 year human equivalent
were to emerge in the
decades ahead
imagine, perhaps, a
forty
or
fifty year extension
then today's optimistic U.N. population projections
that envision a stabilization of world population
or
that envision a total world population
of nine billion around 2050
would go
right
out the window
Finally,
if you think that China's one-child policy is strict, should a 500-year human
lifetime ever actually emerge,
then replacement-level fertility
may have
to drop
to
just 4/10 ths of a child per woman
... per century ...
Note that the propositions and examples below are
offered as stimulants to thought, implications, insights,
and caution - not as advocacy
Suppose that a woman were to live for 500 years: If she were to restrict herself to
just 4/10ths of a child per century
this
would result in a total of two children over the
course of her five-hundred year lifetime
( 0.4 per century x five centuries = 2 )
one
child to replace her upon her death, and a
second child to replace the father upon his death
It is all somewhat astounding. Visit this site again
as we explore these many thoughts further
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