Science
Related: About this forumGirl who never ages could hold secrets to immortality
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/2013/08/17/07/46/girl-who-never-ages-could-hold-secrets-to-immortalityGirl who never ages could hold secrets to immortality
ninemsn staff
7:46am August 17, 2013
Doctors believe an eight-year-old US girl who has the body of a newborn baby could hold the secrets to biological immortality.
Montana girl Gabby Williams weighs just 5kg and still needs to be cared for like a baby.
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Gabby's condition is so rare that it does not even have a name.
Medical researcher Richard F Walker said Gabby has a slowed-down process of developmental inertia, the process that allows the body to grow and change as it ages.
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"If we could identify the gene and then at young adulthood we could silence the expression of developmental inertia, find an off-switch, when you do that, there is perfect homeostasis and you are biologically immortal," Dr Walker said.... MORE
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I wonder if it's got to do with the telomeres.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
defacto7
(13,485 posts)No one ages or dies. The ethics, psychology, and value of the entirety of humanity would change drastically to something we now would never consider but can only imagine. Nothing... repeat... nothing would be the same.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Fascinating to think about, though.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)undeterred
(34,658 posts)that they are no longer liable to hit anyone.
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)...by Drew Magary.
This is the trailer for the book:
Old age can never kill him now.
The only problem is, everything else still can . . .
Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and-after much political and moral debate-made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors. Witty, eerie, and full of humanity, The Postmortal is an unforgettable thriller that envisions a pre-apocalyptic world so real that it is completely terrifying.
I thoroughly 'enjoyed' the book, though it definitely deflected any wish I might have had to live 'forever'. Here is an excerpt from a review that doesn't give away too much of the story.
In the early 21st century, a redheaded geneticist, Dr. Graham Otto, tries to isolate the gene responsible for causing red hair. Instead of finding a way to alter ones natural hair color, Otto inadvertently discovers the gene that controls aging and the world will never be the same. Broadcasting and publishing the news of his discovery, the American and international public soon clamor for the Cure and while initially prohibited and limited to black market dealings, soon Dr. Ottos discovery becomes legal and increasingly widespread. With the worlds luckiest generation receiving the cure, humanitys priorities begin to shift. Marriages dissolve and take on a new form entirely (when one can stay young forever, whats the use in planning for retirement before death, or mapping out exactly when to have children?). And, while one can stay looking exactly the same and never aging a day beyond date of taking the cure, people are still very much mortal creatures that can die of sickness, accident, suicide, or murder. As the population increases with a minimal death rate, the worlds finite resources show the strain. Pro-natural/anti-cure fundamentalists emerge as dangerous individuals with a singular agenda to wipe out as many postmortals as possible.
Read the rest of the review for more details...
Response to theHandpuppet (Original post)
Bosonic This message was self-deleted by its author.
emsimon33
(3,128 posts)Callmecrazy
(3,065 posts)The downfall of all civilization. No drive to excel. Why go to school now? There's plenty of time for that.
Life and living would be meaningless if we each didn't owe a death.
ret5hd
(20,491 posts)Usain Bolt wouldn't run?
I wouldn't enjoy math, CAD/CAM and woodworking?
Yeah, I will call you crazy.
Death makes life meaningful. The drive to procreate would diminish without the survival instinct.
Of course this is all moot. We're all gonna die.
NV Whino
(20,886 posts)I have a friend who was diagnosed with diabetes at age 13, and was told (by his, I have to say, incompetent doctor) he would probably die by age 30. Well, here he is, age 68, and he never married, never had kids, never developed his considerable talents, never set or realized goals. Just waiting to die by age 30.
Callmecrazy
(3,065 posts)But with all due respect, that's an isolated incident. A special case.
If everyone was immortal, society as a whole could deteriorate.
NV Whino
(20,886 posts)greiner3
(5,214 posts)I read that sci-fi short story also, however I can't think of the author or title.
I am referring to the story with the premise that one could have anything they wanted while growing up but how much they used before reaching adulthood meant what they needed to become in life in order to 'pay' for their early life.
The character portrayed thought he could get around what he thought was a flaw in the system by spending so much that he accumulated several lifetimes of debt to society.
On his 18th birthday he was brought to whatever ruling body that assigned the 'jobs'.
It was then ruled that since this person had so much debt that in order to have him pay it off his brain would be attached to the newest outer space probe, one that would take just as many centuries to complete its mission as he had debt owed.
The story is much more interesting than I can give it credit, bound both by space and my limited memory of a story I last read maybe a decade ago.
However, since the main plot has remained, it must have given me cause to remember as much as I did, all from a short story.
Callmecrazy
(3,065 posts)And my premise comes from a lifetime of thought on the subject. I mean, if everybody's special, then no one is.
qazplm
(3,626 posts)it would just be anti-aging. Plenty of folks would die and given the percentages for each type of death, most folks wouldn't last more than 200-300 years, and I don't think that's going to lead to the downfall of civilization.
Callmecrazy
(3,065 posts)and some sort of natural disaster, the only thing people would die from is boredom IMHO.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)This girl also doesn't grow and develop. All of these people have massive defects. They're not "normal" very young people for their ages - they are profoundly impaired by this condition.
Even when you're older, you need to heal and restore those tissues. This seems to be a defect in growth which also must be a defect in repair, surely.
Here is another article about this syndrome, found in only a few people worldwide. Please note that it doesn't suggest that you will be immortal, just that natural aging won't occur.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/biological-immortality-gabby-williams-genetic-condition-prevents-8-year-old-aging-252081
It's unlikely that you could stop aging, because a lot of aging is due to just the damage of living. Our bodies keep replacing and renewing themselves, and when that becomes impossible, we die. If we were to materially slow that process, we might "age" more slowly, but we'd probably wind up being very impaired by our 40s.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)I'd say Dick Cheney had already stolen the secret.