Eternal youth, in the minds of the inhabitants of our planet, has always been understood as a longed-for, but still unattainable goal. The natural expression of such a latently cherished desire was the fabulous images of rejuvenating apples, living and dead water and all such other things in the folklore of many peoples. There are also real scientific developments of this, at first glance, fantastic project. We will talk about them now.
Nobody wanted to die
When there was still no science, but people already had a thirst to prolong life at all costs, alchemists pored over the preparation of the elixir of immortality. To this end, they used ingredients that, in their opinion, best ensured the implementation of the plan. Scientists took substances that were extremely resistant to adverse external influences (for example, gold), added precious stones crushed into dust, and then mixed all this with very outlandish components such as dried toads, bats, virgin sperm and the like. All this was shaken up, cooked for a long time on the fire, and then combined with musk or amber for aroma. It was believed that the systematic use of such a drug will definitely lead to unfading youth and immortality.
In modern times, people abandoned such exotic and dubious procedures based on witchcraft techniques, and now science has taken the place of magic. Immortology - the science of immortality - got its name from the Latin im mors ("without death"), the term was introduced by the Russian scientist I. V. Vishev. This science includes the ideas of eternal life and preservation of youth through a decrease in body temperature, a change in the physical owner of consciousness (cloning), as well as the restoration of damaged or worn out cells and organs (transplantology, the use of stem cells and nanotechnology).
Memento mori
"Remember death" - this motto of the ancient Roman commanders, returning home with victory, should be taken by immortologists who, despite the loud name of their science, abandoned their ultimate goal - immortality, focusing on more modest tasks - prolonging youth and the most physical life. Let us add that immortology is too extensive and ramified to describe in detail about this scientific direction within the framework of one article, so we will only mention the most important thing.
Now in Japan, a way to prolong life by lowering body temperature and, consequently, inhibiting metabolism is being actively studied. It is based on the fact that animals with a slow metabolism (elephant, turtle) live much longer than those in which it is accelerated (for example, mice). An experiment was carried out on rodents, which showed that a decrease in the body temperature of animals by half a degree increases their lifespan by 15-20%. It becomes clear why the greatest number of centenarians is found not only in the Caucasus mountains, but also among the inhabitants of the Far North, where the conditions of existence and the ambient temperature are approaching extreme.
Another path to immortality is through stem cells. So - they call immature or undifferentiated cells located in the bone marrow, from which the body is then "built". According to assumptions, it is possible to artificially grow tissues and organs from them, so that later they can replace damaged or worn-out ones.
Researchers also found that the body has a kind of "biological clock" that shortens the life of cells after each division. Ultimately, the existence of cells becomes so short that they immediately die after the next division. Scientists set out to make cells divide an indefinite number of times and … not die. So far, only cancer cells have such qualities, which, it turns out, are actually immortal, since they die not from aging, but from external causes.
Finally, the latest area of research is nanotechnology. With the help of nanotechnology, it will be possible to create microscopic robots that, getting inside the capillaries, tissues and cells, will eliminate any damage. In nature, there are already "robots" of this type - these are viruses that humans do not yet control, but still ahead.
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Rejuvenation as a disease
Paradoxically, not every rejuvenation is a process opposite to aging, and these manipulations are not always beneficial. In other words, in some cases we are talking only about the appearance of rejuvenation, and also about the fact that the obsessive desire to preserve youth can acquire a pathological character.
Here, first of all, one should name such innocent tricks, which are more common among aging women, such as concealing their age, decorative cosmetics or makeup, tinting gray hair and, to top it off, plastic surgery. All this is usually decided by the lady herself, moreover, it is condescendingly assessed by our morality and is not prohibited by anyone. For example, it is widespread to implant silicone in the breasts so that they appear large and elastic, as well as pumping the lips with the same silicone. However, these tricks transform only the "facade", "sign", while the internal state of the body does not improve at all. Atherosclerosis, deterioration of the heart and blood vessels, and all other diseases and ailments characteristic of old age do not disappear anywhere. All the more strangewhen elderly beauties who have long gone from reproductive age go to such an operation. Their protruding breasts and very swollen lips - like a young diva during ovulation, when a woman looks most desirable - look just caricature.
The fashion for youth, unfortunately, often turns into a real mania. This is sometimes called Dorian Gray syndrome - after the hero of the famous work of Oscar Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray". This young man dreamed of eternal youth, and his dream came true. However, the reader knows how it ended. As they say, nothing good.
Dysmorphophobia is a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mental disorder in which a person is too busy with a certain defect or feature of his body, is not just a banal dissatisfaction with his appearance or figure, but literally exhausting and taking all the time, strength and means of the cult of youth.
It is believed that at the heart of all this is a panic fear of aging and becoming less attractive in the eyes of others. However, in cases where old age and wilting become too obvious, the pursuit of youth causes only ridicule. As an example, let us give a description of Prince K. from the story of F. M. Dostoevsky's "Uncle's Dream". As the author writes, this far from young man was all composed "of pieces" in the form of a glass eye, false teeth, false hair, a corset and a prosthesis instead of one leg, with springs for straightening wrinkles, and so on. Most of the time, the prince was busy with his dress, always dressed like a fashionable young man, and reduced all conversations to love affairs. Already quite decrepit, he kept his voluptuous habits, paying compliments, admiring the "forms" and "greedily lorning" the "tempting" females.
Most often, this syndrome occurs in those whose profession is associated with being in public: with film actors, pop singers and others. A typical example is Michael Jackson, who not only went under the knife of a plastic surgeon hundreds of times, but also “killed a negro in himself” by bleaching his skin.
Is eternal life even necessary?
From a philosophical point of view, it is meaningless and impossible, since in the physical world everything that has a beginning necessarily has an end. And even if we assume that someone will live indefinitely, sooner or later he will get tired of it - the person will simply lose interest in his existence. It would be a tragedy that the eternal man could not kill himself in order to interrupt the incessant flow of the vital sensations that he had become bored with. Jonathan Swift wrote about this in his book "Gulliver's Travels", displaying on its pages the image of strulbrugs - unhappy and disgusting immortal old people. In addition, the huge number of all the time arriving centenarians would simply cause overpopulation of the planet. People would literally go over their heads, as it was, for example, in China, until its government legislated to limit the birth rate.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №4. Author: Arkady Vyatkin