

 Is this the secret of eternal life? - parenthesis
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/is-this-the-secret-of-eternal-life-1674005.html

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Donald
Levi-Montalcini is arguably genetically predisposed for longevity. Her twin
sister, artist Paola Levi-Montalcini, died at the age of 91 [1] and was still
actively creating works into the 1990s. [2]

_

1\.
[http://quotidianonet.ilsole24ore.com/2000/09/29/1337059-MORT...](http://quotidianonet.ilsole24ore.com/2000/09/29/1337059-MORTA-
PAOLA-LEVI-MONTALCINI-SORELLA-DI-RITA.shtml)

2\. <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/levi-montalcini-paola>

~~~
tokenadult
Interestingly, longevity has about the lowest broad heritability of any human
medical outcome ever studied.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/health/31age.html?pagewant...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/health/31age.html?pagewanted=3)

I'd be glad to believe that genes matter, because my grandparents lived long,
healthy lives, and one of my parents is still living, but I think my ancestors
had rather different lifestyles from mine.

~~~
Allocator2008
I think that makes total sense, in terms of longevity not being broadly
inherited. Why would it be? Once an organism has lived long enough to be able
to reproduce and no longer is able to reproduce, there is no evolutionary
purpose for that organism to stick around. Genetic drift could account for
some people having more longevity than others, but I see no selective
advantage for it, from the point of view of the gene. Thus it makes sense that
not too many people would be genetically pre-disposed towards longevity.

Personally, I don't mind the James Dean ethos: "Live fast, die young, and
leave a beautiful corpse behind!" :-)

~~~
derefr
Technically, there's no reason that organisms _should_ reach a point where
they're "no longer able to reproduce"; I think it's merely a random choice of
our most basic biology that we grow "old" and then die from various diseases
and systems failures, rather than simply surviving until there are so many
[generations] of us around at once that some individuals can no longer find
food. This is the way that asexual species, like bacteria, function.

You'd think it would actually be in the best interest of any given organism to
have as long a reproductive lifetime as possible, and therefore fitness
_would_ increase along with longevity, as long as that longevity remained
_virile/fertile_.

Then again...

If the old _did_ instead survive to compete with the young, evolution would
start to fail as a process—you'd have too many non-adapted organisms
reproducing with one another, and so what adaptation there was would happen
much more slowly.

Today, sexual species that have "dropped back down" into being asexual,
reproducing by cloning or the like (which have the same evolutionary
disadvantage as a non-aging species would have, but more so) can survive and
prosper. However, far enough back in the genetic soup, when sexual species
first diverged from asexual ones, there was probably a fierce competition
where being a sexual species was only a _little_ better (it requires more
resources, after all), and so aging provided an immediate advantage in terms
of setting an equilibrium point for species size, so as to not strain
resources.

(This may very well be taught in an intro Bio class, but I love discovering
things on my own in the form of meditative writing. It's a fact completely
untaught in schools today that knowledge lies at your fingertips that you're
completely unaware of, not from a book or a website or another person, but
from your own mind, and that you can access it without having to have anyone
guide you to it. Philosophy is neglected as a means to pursue ordinary,
practical knowledge, but it's really just a super-set of science: there's
still a hypothesis, experimentation, observations and a conclusion, it's just
that the "experimentation" doesn't require a physical world. In the case
above, obviously, it would be better to have an actual scientific study, but
the very fact that you can derive a preliminary _intuition_ of a topic without
anyone telling you what to think, or giving you a demonstration one way or the
other, is revelation enough for most people in the world today.)

~~~
barry-cotter
It's not a random choice. You're optimised for the spreading of your genes and
if you spend resources on maintaining your body in perfect health and your
competitor lets his body run down while spending those resources on progeny he
wins on average.

The old surviving to compete with the young would not make evolution fail.
There are limited resources and competition for them so the ill adapted die,
there's nothing in there that stops the old living on forever, and if
organisms can't breed together they generally don't copulate (adaptation).
Great^8 granddad might want to get it on with g^8 daughter, but she'll be
uninterested because her adaptations will not see him as sexual, any more than
we'd see a chimp.

There is actually only one major family that are asexual the rotifers. Given
that sex appears wasteful of energy, the fact that there is only one example
of a lineage successful in geological time with asexuality is pretty strong
evidence it's a good idea.

For more, better, more clearly expressed, read Richard Dawkins.

 _Under no circumstances read anything by Steven Jay Gould to learn biology._

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radu_floricica
I always wondered if there is somewhere a list of things one can do to remain
active longer. Preferably categorized: minimum exercise requirements, regular
checkups, drugs etc.

~~~
Ardit20
The problem is that we are so complex and this world is so complex that the
factors which may contribute to longer life are at best probabilities and much
of these probabilities are not even known. Although there is plenty one can
do, Italians for example seem to live longer that is due to their
Mediterranean diet and their love of wine.

