[extropy-chat] IEEE Spectrum on aging: Why We Fall Apart

Giu1i0 Pri5c0 pgptag at gmail.com
Thu Sep 16 10:05:18 UTC 2004


>From IEEE Spectrum: The problem is that our bodies
deteriorate with age. For most of our lives, the risk
of death is increasing exponentially, doubling every
eight years. So, why do we fall apart, and what can we
do about it?
Many scientists now believe that, for the first time
in human history, we have developed a sophisticated
enough understanding of the nature of human aging to
begin seriously planning ways to defeat it. These
scientists are working from a simple but compelling
notion: the body, far from being a perfect creation,
is a failure-prone, defect-ridden machine formed
through the stochastic process of biological
evolution. In this view, we can be further improved
through genetic engineering and be better maintained
through preventive, regenerative, and antiaging
medicine and by repairing and replacing worn-out body
parts. In short, the rate at which we fall apart could
be decreased, maybe even to a negligible level...
Finally, we could learn to replace our damaged organs,
substituting the young and healthy for the old and
failing. Many researchers now believe that one day the
human life span could be greatly extended by
replenishing aging organs with stem cells. We are just
now starting down this road. Such regenerative
medicine and tissue engineering may sound like science
fiction, but a growing number of scientists are taking
the first steps to grow tissues and organs to replace
failed ones. Laboratories around the world are making
progress in building replacement lung, kidney, liver,
and heart tissue. http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/sep04/0904age.html



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