Do We Have to Get Old and Die?
We'd like to thank Focus Features for sponsoring this video – and for inviting us to pre-screen their summer 2015 film “Self/Less”. It's a sci-fi flick that explores memory, consciousness...
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To us humans, aging seems inevitable - probably because no human has ever not aged. But gettingolder isn’t as universal a fact of life as we might think.Take the naked mole rat. Unlike their less-naked brethren, they don’t appear to age afterreaching adulthood - years pass, but the rats don’t get weaker, more susceptible to disease,or wrinkly...at least not any more wrinkly...and they keep on making as many babies as ever.Surprisingly, they aren’t any more likely to die in old age than when they’re youngadults. It’s as if they’ve found the fountain of youth, though perhaps not the fountainof beauty. And naked mole rats aren’t alone in not aging: rockfish, lobsters, and bristleconepines also seem to stay forever young...or at least forever middle-aged...
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To us humans, aging seems inevitable - probably because no human has ever not aged. But gettingolder isn’t as universal a fact of life as we might think.Take the naked mole rat. Unlike their less-naked brethren, they don’t appear to age afterreaching adulthood - years pass, but the rats don’t get weaker, more susceptible to disease,or wrinkly...at least not any more wrinkly...and they keep on making as many babies as ever.Surprisingly, they aren’t any more likely to die in old age than when they’re youngadults. It’s as if they’ve found the fountain of youth, though perhaps not the fountainof beauty. And naked mole rats aren’t alone in not aging: rockfish, lobsters, and bristleconepines also seem to stay forever young...or at least forever middle-aged...
