We could be the next generation in history to have a normal lifespan. We do not need to know the cause of aging to slow . (David Sinclair, a biologist at a medical conference Tedmed - Technology Entertainment Design-in 2009).
Th è me this month: The extreme age and science fiction
A life without aging seems to be a favorite theme of science fiction. In a another world or in the distant future, the future humans or other intelligent beings live without the simple passage of time is a factor of decrepitude. 
Yet.
Yet in the vast literature of anticipation or imagination, narratives describing a life without constraints of age are virtually absent. And when men, women or other people do not age, at the cost of major suffering for themselves or others.
The four categories of fiction that you can meet.
Foresight moderate. These are probably the most numerous stories. Science fiction explores the boundaries of contemporary but away from it in fact very little. The world is equal but women still remain in the background. Or do women have become equal to men, but they stayed and they are very white skin. With the same moderation, the science fiction medicine sees human beings grow and live a little longer. Sometimes more than a century, but rarely more. Thus the extraordinary medical technology in Star Trek does not prevent the heroes of old. Or, as in recent works Globalia or statement , advances in medicine can achieve a higher age limit but at the cost of many sufferings, a progressive degradation and social injustice.
Universes dystopian (anti-utopian). They describe different environments but worse than ours. Men live without dying of old age but they die of something else. The film (and novel) Age crystal where men do not age but are killed when they reach thirty years illustrates this theme. It may also suffer horribly as the immortals in the film Zardoz where a group of humans welcomes the possibility of death as a deliverance.
artificial environments. is another frequent theme in science fiction. Formerly, there were men and robots. The men left, only machines still facing eternity. Or worse, for example Terminator, robots are immortal but they want to destroy humans. Sometimes, as in the film AI Artificial Intelligence , the robot accesses to humanity. But this access will be priced at what these stories seems to be the last feature of the human face of machines endowed with reason: death.
mutants. The last category includes environments that are more fantasy than science fiction. Immortality is but for some unexplained reason generally, it affects only some are different. And almost always, these immortal undergo a kind of curse: they are suffering and pain. Thus, the hero (almost) immortal Highlander must kill each other. The stories of vampires and zombies are virtually indestructible in itself an entire genre of literature and cinematography. And in which the fate of both consumers and consumers is rarely very enviable.
Why so few stories optimistic? Obviously, the stories where people are happy are less exciting. But there is also a psychological explanation. If we begin to expect not to grow old and die, it would contrast contemporary life unbearable. The conscious and the unconscious can grow to avoid the subject. Hope is a poison that even a writer wanting to loose the real reluctant to impose.
But the progress of research make the literary exploration of these prospects easier and closer. The recent film Mr Nobody is the first work of anticipation spread wide in which human beings "normal" are those who live without aging. Even though this film also addresses other issues and it is still quite pessimistic, the Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael crosses the border.
The good news of the month: The cancer rate continues to decrease steadily
Contrary to what is often claimed and collected, cancer mortality is steadily decreasing among men, women and children. Too many women die of breast cancer but are less numerous than before. Too many children die of leukemia, but they are fewer and fewer.
Thus the United States, according to statistics recently published by the American Cancer Society, cancer mortality decreased continuously 20 years. For example:
- the rate of total cancer mortality was 178.4 per 100,000 in 2007 while it was 180.7 per 100,000 in 2006;
- the number of deaths from cancer has decreased 2% per year for men from 2001 to 2006 and 1, 5% per year for women from 2002 to 2006.
The non-collection of this positive news has several causes, including the main one is another good news. Imagine the trees gradually lose their leaves, but some much more slowly than others. After some weeks, the impression will be that the remaining trees provided the most have more leaves than before, while only less bare. It's the same with the dead from cancer: as other causes of mortality decline rapidly, declining less rapidly in deaths from cancer appears as a progression.
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P o u r in his v o i r p l u s de m a n i è re g ene r has the e : http://sens.org , http://imminst.org, http://heales.org and http://immortalite.org/
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To see the lecture by David Sinclair : http://www.tedmed.com/videos # David_Sinclair_at_TEDMED_2009
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To view statistics on mortality due to cancer: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4802 and http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-07/acs-cdc070710 . php
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P o u r r é a g i r or R and c and v the and R the a l a r e d ' in n f the rma t i on : info@heales.org
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S or rce de l'imag e : http://www.flickr.com/photos/57158820 @ N00/3233242893 /
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