When we get old, our eyesight and hearing start to diminish, muscles quit working, and our bodies generally deteriorate. Why can’t humans be more like redwood trees that live for hundreds of years, seemingly immune to the adverse effects of aging? If we stuck around longer, we could presumably impart wisdom on younger generations, thereby benefiting the whole species. But it's not going to happen.

One theory on why humans age, proposed by University of Arizona, is that it protects against epidemics. The greater the population density, the more vulnerable that population is to a disease wiping out much of the species. The blog Ouroboros explains the theory this way:

If I (an organism) am more susceptible than average to a given disease, and that susceptibility has a genetic component, then my closest relatives (who share most of my genes) are likelier than the general population to be susceptible as well. Therefore, my continued existence poses a risk for my progeny, because I represent one more potential host for a pathogen that might infect them – potentially killing us all and ending the line altogether.

The general human tendency, however, is to fight aging at all costs. Talking with RadioLab, geneticist George Church said that advancing technology could make the state of “totally dead” obsolete. Church believes that technology could, hypothetically, reverse engineer people to the point where they could put anyone back together at any time. Then, presumably, people could live forever.

Not pursuing technology that would allow humans to live forever would be “immoral,” according to Cambridge researcher Aubrey de Grey, speaking at TED. According to de Grey, aging is a disease that should be cured for the sake of future generations.

The problem with trying to live forever is not that it would be “crushingly boring” or that “dictators would rule forever” or the other straw man arguments that de Grey throws out. Instead, the problem is the hubris inherent in the quest. People age for a reason, whether or not we understand that reason just yet.

Sources:  Ouroboros ,  RadioLab ,  TED  

Getting older is more fun with ELDR, a new magazine that “brings an enlightened, entertaining and sometimes edgy approach to aging.” The second issue (Winter 2007-2008) serves up progressive, informative, fun articles, with content I found interesting even as someone decades younger than the intended audience. I especially enjoyed “Hooray for Gray!,” which reports on the growing number of women who let their hair stay gray, and “Best Fish to Eat,” a chart that rates fish based on health and environmental factors. There’s also a colorful pull-out poster with tips on how to avoid the flu and a longer feature on staying mentally sharp through brain exercises. I no longer have grandparents, but I will definitely recommend ELDR to my parents. (Once they’re old enough to not be offended, anyway.)

—Sarah Pumroy

If the human body is a temple, as some clean-living optimists would have us believe, then it’s more like the imploding, booby-trapped one in Raiders of the Lost Ark than King Solomon’s long-standing tabernacle in Jerusalem. The deterioration of this quickly-crumbling vessel is painful and often embarrassing, as John Dolan points out in his chilling yet uproarious guide to aging in the Russian alt-weekly The eXile. The article is divided into four stages of aging—or decaying, depending on your penchant for the macabre—to maximize user friendliness. That way, you can quickly reference where on the spectrum your earthly husk falls, from “tetraplegic feces-factory” to “senile living corpse spew[ing] up pea soup like an aged Linda Blair.”

—Morgan Winters