Current Aging Science - Volume 7, Issue 1, 2014

The death of our universe is as certain as our individual death. Some cosmologists have elaborated models which would make the cosmos immortal. In this paper, I examine them as cosmological extrapolations of immortality narratives that civilizations have developed to face death anxiety. I first show why cosmological death should be a worry, then I briefly examine scenarios involving the notion of soul or resurrecti Read More

We live within an increasingly technological, information-laden environment for the first time in human evolution. This subjects us (and will continue to subject us in an accelerating fashion) to an unremitting exposure to ‘meaningful information that requires action’. Directly dependent upon this new environment are novel evolutionary pressures, which can modify existing resource allocation mechanisms and may eventually favo Read More

Throughout primate history there have been three major life history transitions towards increasingly delayed sexual maturation and biological reproduction, as well as towards extended life expectancy. Monkeys reproduce later and live longer than do prosimians, apes reproduce later and live longer than do monkeys, and humans reproduce later and live longer than do apes. These life history transitions are connected to in Read More

Despite the common apprehensions regarding the aging population, this work aims to argue, on both deontological and utilitarian moral grounds, that any increase in general life-expectancy will be beneficial for the Middle East, countering the common fears associated with this increase. A set of ethical arguments concerning increasing longevity is presented, from both the deontological and utilitarian perspective. A wide selecti Read More

Aging is generally interpreted according to two opposing paradigms: 1) as a non-adaptive phenomenon, caused by the age-related failure of homeostatic mechanisms; 2) as a specific function, favored by natural selection, which determines the self-destruction of the organism, namely explaining aging as phenoptosis. This interpretation requires genetically determined and regulated age-specific mechanisms, now well d Read More

Prevailing ideas of how aging evolved are a poor fit with the picture of aging that is developing from genetics labs and breeding experiments. Nevertheless, the community of theorists is reluctant to consider alternate approaches because the differences are profound, calling into question much of the standard methodology of Population Genetics. (At stake is not the legacy of Darwin, but the particular model of Darwinian s Read More

In contrast to the first part of life (development), ageing appears to be under less strict genetic control. The precise timing of events so characteristic of development seems to loosen its grasp, while stochastic and environmental factors seem to become the dominant force. Evolutionary theories put forward a decreasing evolutionary pressure over the course of life as the reason behind this pattern, yet disse Read More

While solutions to major scientific and medical problems are never perfect or complete, it is still reasonable to delineate cases where both have been essentially solved. For example, Darwin’s theory of natural selection provides a successful solution to the problem of biological adaptation, while the germ theory of infection solved the scientific problem of contagious disease. Likewise in the context of medicine, we have effe Read More

Aging is analyzed as the spontaneous loss of adaptivity and increase in fragility that characterizes dynamic systems. Cybernetics defines the general regulatory mechanisms that a system can use to prevent or repair the damage produced by disturbances. According to the law of requisite variety, disturbances can be held in check by maximizing buffering capacity, range of compensatory actions, and knowledge about whic Read More