Science is Making Anti-Aging Progress. but Do We Want to Live Forever?

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Mayflies live for only a day. Galapagos tortoises can reach up to age 170. The Greenland shark holds the world record at over 400 years of life.

Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel laureate and author of the newly released book "Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality," opened his packed Harvard Science Book Talk last week by noting the vast variabilities of lifespans across the natural world.

Death is certain, so far as we know. But there's no physical or chemical law that says it must happen at a fixed time, which raises other, more philosophical issues.

The "why" behind these enormous swings, and the quest to harness longevity for humans, have driven fevered attempts (and billions of dollars in research spending) to slow or stop aging. Ramakrishnan's book is a dispassionate journey through current scientific understanding of aging and death, which basically comes down to an accumulation of chemical damage to molecules and cells.

"The question is whether we can tackle aging processes, while still keeping us who we are as humans," said Ramakrishnan during his conversation with Antonio Regalado, a writer for the MIT Technology Review. "And whether we can do that in a safe and effective way."

Even if immortality-or just living for a very, very long time-were theoretically possible through science, should we pursue it? Ramakrishnan likened the question to other moral ponderings.

"There's no physical or chemical law that says we can't colonize other galaxies, or outer space, or even Mars," he said. "I would put it in that same category. And it would require huge breakthroughs, which we haven't made yet."

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