Humans are helpless in the face of death. Immortality has always been our ultimate dream.
Can human beings really live forever?
The answer is: yes! Besides, most of us can live to see this day!
No kidding. Not alarmist.
In fact, immortal species are not uncommon. Life on earth appeared 3.7 billion years ago. Most of these original life forms are single-celled organisms, and one of their characteristics is self-reproduction, so they are all immortal.
So when did death come to the biological world?
1 100 million years ago, some species began to evolve into sexual reproduction.
/kloc-0.6 million years ago, flowering plants appeared.
Since then, illness and death have become the norm in the animal and plant world.
Xiaoyou Helena hand-painted
However, even in today's animal kingdom, there are still some immortal types. For example, the jellyfish in the picture below, commonly known as Turritopsis dohrnii, lives in the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Japan. Immortal jellyfish are so small that they can only be seen clearly by borrowing a microscope. They have a magical feature: once the larvae become adults, once they encounter adversity (hunger, limb injury, etc. ), they began to grow backwards, losing their tentacles first, and then changing from adults to juvenile corals. After that, it developed into an adult again. As long as it is not eaten by other animals, it can go on and on.
Source: Wikipedia-immortal jellyfish
As we all know, lobsters and turtles also live long. Even when they are old, their heart function and vitality are almost the same as those of "young" lobster turtles, but they are bigger.
Source: National Geographic.
The mammals to which human beings belong are the most miserable: all individuals will die!
Don't despair yet. Even in humans, some cells are immortal, such as germ cells (cells that produce sperm and eggs).
Human germ cells can constantly replicate themselves, although other cells can't, but this is a ray of light. Because, as long as there is a cell that can live forever, it means that we humans still have immortal genes. As long as these genes can be found and activated, other cells can also be transformed into immortality.
If you want to live forever, the first step is to understand the causes of aging, and then explore the cracking technology.
So, what is the cause of aging? At present, there are two main theories in the scientific community.
One of the theories: loss theory
With the growth of age, our genes are constantly damaged and corroded, gradually distorted, and eventually lead to the aging of the body. Even the self-repair function in cells will eventually fail.
"disrepair" is killing me.
The main advocate of this theory is Aubrey de Grey, the chief scientist of SENS Research Foundation in Cambridge, England (see the picture below). Born in 1963, this person is sage-like, and it seems that the genes in his body are no longer failing.
The second theory: helmet theory
Every time a cell divides, the chromosome is copied. Unfortunately, every copy is incomplete. There is always less than 1% deletion of telomeres at both ends of chromosomes. It is said that telomeres are similar to the helmet of chromosomes and play a protective role. It doesn't matter if you cut them a few times. But you can't catch one knife after another. Generally, after fifty or sixty knives, mitochondria will fail. When the chromosome loses its helmet protection and is exposed to the knife edge, the cell automatically hangs (stops replicating itself). Our life is coming to an end.
Helmet said that the school is full of talents and its value is not low. Three of them also won the Nobel Prize in 2009 (from left to right: Elizabeth H Blackburn, Carol W Grader and Jack W szostak).
Copyright? 2009 Nobel Foundation
Photo: Frieda Westholm
(Confess leniency: The generic name of the above theory was invented by the author for easy understanding and memory, and it has not been unanimously recognized by the scientific community-it is expected that it will not be obtained in this life. But the content of the theory can't be compiled. )
Knowing the main cause of aging, it is only a matter of time to solve it.
Alphabet established Calico Company in September, 20 13, specializing in aging and diseases caused by aging. This subsidiary has a gorgeous lineup (CEO Arthur levinson, the current chairman of Apple, and the CEO/ chairman of the former biotechnology giant Genentech), with sufficient funds and clear goals, and is determined to win.
Larry Page, the head of Alphabet, aims to solve the problems of human health, well-being and longevity for Calico. Page's consistent requirement for all subordinate companies is not to waste time on small-scale improvement, and not to waste time on it if it is not more than ten times the improvement (Larry Page's 10X theory).
Extend our life by 10 times?
Based on the average life expectancy of 76 years in China, 10X means that we can live to nearly 760 years old!
Yeah! Chicken jelly!
So, how do the two schools mentioned above solve the problem of aging?
More importantly, when can human beings resist aging and live forever?
The answer is:
20 years!
There will be a qualitative breakthrough in 20 years!
It's a long story. Let's start with loss-making schools.
Dr. Gray concluded that there are seven kinds of losses caused by aging: cell loss, nuclear mutation, mitochondrial mutation, cell rejection, tissue sclerosis caused by cross-linking, extracellular waste and intracellular waste.
Fortunately, these seven kinds of losses can be repaired as long as the methods are reliable.
Gray's treatment plan is to regularly care for the lost genes, repair most of them, not necessarily 100%, so as to keep the gene loss above the safety standard to avoid causing aging of the body.
Dr. Gray predicts that the first generation of treatment will mature in the next 20 years or so (about 2037), and its curative effect can prolong life by about 30 years.
Thirty years! Do you feel that you are a big piece of white chess in a crisis, and you are chased by black chess. Suddenly, you are free!
It's more than that.
The 30th birthday is a ticket to a spaceship. Boarding this spaceship, you can fly (endure) to the next stage, and when the second generation of treatment comes out, you can replenish blood again for decades or hundreds of years. With the continuous renewal of three generations and four generations, it will be immortal step by step!
Don't be so happy, let go of the loss pie and see what the helmet pie has.
Every time a chromosome is copied, the helmets (telomeres) at both ends will be cut short. Telomeres are constantly cut off, and after 5 or 60 times, they lose the function of protecting chromosomes. When chromosomes are confused, their cells will hang up.
Therefore, the length of telomere is the timer of our life!
Scientists have found that some "immortalized cells" (such as germ cells) can produce a protein called telomerase. The function of telomerase is to repair telomeres:
Whenever a cell divides, as long as telomeres are shortened, telomerase will help telomeres grow another piece. In this way, telomeres are no longer afraid of cutting, and cells can replicate and divide indefinitely.
The timer of life ticks. But every time the pointer moves one square, telomerase immediately pushes it back to one square.
Youth Ding Ge!
It is this great discovery of telomerase function that won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for the above three scientists.
Therefore, one of the main directions of helmet school at present is to make all cells produce proper amount of telomerase, which is enough to repair telomeres without making cells grow into cancer cells.
Dr. Bill Andrews, the founder of Sierra Sciences, is a staunch supporter of helmet theory for a long time. He is 66 years old and has been focusing on telomere research for nearly 25 years. He holds more than 50 related patents. He said that he is confident to overcome this problem in his lifetime.
The life span of a 66-year-old is inferred from common sense. . . . . .
In 20 years? !
It seems that the timetable obtained from the two schools is very close, about 20 years. Hopes have been raised for the people who eat melons.
It should be pointed out that although the two schools hold their own words, they are very consistent in the general direction: to prolong a healthy life, not to linger endlessly. A 760-year-old man can still compete with the18th generation Sun tennis court. Immortality is more important than immortality.
The most powerful thing is that the life science is developing continuously and moving forward in an accelerated way.
In 2004, scientists all over the world completed the sequencing of human DNA in one fell swoop. This great achievement took 15 years and cost more than $4 billion. Now, just ten years later, it only takes 1 hour to detect anyone's genetic composition, and the cost has dropped to $200.
In 20 12, an epoch-making gene technology was born: CRISPR.
With the help of CRISPR technology, scientists can edit any gene in a cell just like editing text on a computer. The profound influence of this technology on human beings and even the whole biological world is immeasurable. It may eradicate thousands of human genetic diseases and even change human characteristics (IQ, body shape, etc.). ) in the future. Scientific experiments that used to take several researchers several years to complete can now be completed by one person in a few days. It is conceivable that CRISPR has greatly accelerated the research on anti-aging.
At this point, Jiang Wei can't help but boldly guess that the main inventor of CRISPR technology will win the Nobel Prize in the next five years. Two of them have made outstanding contributions, one is Professor Jennifer Dudner of the University of California, Berkeley, and the other is Dr. Zhang Feng, a Chinese professor at Harvard University (198 1) (below).
On the other hand, CRISPR technology has also brought huge hidden worries. Now an ordinary high school laboratory can use this technology to generate new species. It turns out that the work done by God can be completed by ordinary science and technology lovers soon. OMG！ This topic is too big.
That is beside the point. Get down to business.
Not only is the basic science accelerating, but commercial organizations have also joined the trend of anti-aging and longevity.
Alphabet has established two life science subsidiaries, which have invested more than 700 million US dollars. Employees who left Google founded 65,438+06 life science companies in the last five years, raising more than $6,543.8+billion. GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceutical Company also invested $654.38+0 billion in anti-aging research. The participation of other commercial organizations will not be listed one by one. In short, life science startups have mushroomed in Silicon Valley.
With a scientific theoretical basis, powerful research tools and resources invested by the business community, the odds are not small.
To take a step back, even after 20 years, the above efforts are unsuccessful, and there is a backup plan in dim light: artificial intelligence can help us achieve "digital immortality"!
Governments such as the European Union and the United States have allocated 654.38 billion dollars to help map brain neurons. Ray Kerzweil, a futurist at Google, predicts that in 2029, we will be able to upload all the information of the brain, including memory, consciousness and temperament. In this way, even if our body no longer exists, our thinking, consciousness and emotion can continue in the cloud.
Please fill in a scene where a 760-year-old "virtual person" and his 18 generation are chatting happily. Students who are not good at brain tonic can refer to the movie Beyond (starring Johnny Depp/Johnny Depp).
Whether it is immortality or virtual immortality, we will know in 20 years!
The biggest tragedy in life is to be the last generation and have to die!
The greater tragedy in life is that those who die for you before you die can live forever! !
Hold on!
This medicine can't stop air pollution, water pollution, food pollution, soil pollution and all kinds of pollution! Live a good life, eat less and exercise more, take frequent walks and rest, and don't have the heart to quarrel, bicker and sulk.
Swear! Go to hell! Quite! Pass the ball Two! Ten! Years!
In their lifetime, most readers can witness this groundbreaking scene in history, and they will also face all-round and brand-new challenges of society and ethics with immortality.
But the prediction of "eternal life after 20 years" has not been widely recognized by the scientific community. It is not easy to make a time prediction. Many scientists try to avoid this topic, but at least, people no longer doubt the feasibility of anti-aging.
Anyway, it's only a matter of time.
As for whether it is early or late? Is it 20, 30 or 80 years? If you are 5 or 60 years old, that is the difference between life and death. Jumping out of the individual and paying attention to homo sapiens, the evolutionary history of more than 70 thousand years; If we look further at life on earth, the evolutionary history of more than 4 billion years will be decades, and there is nothing to say.
Question 1: population explosion and limited resources.
Q: Brother Wei, you said that if people can really live forever, wouldn't it cause an explosion of the world population? The earth is limited, how can so many people hold on? And with so many mouths to eat, consume, create garbage and pollute, the resources of the earth are limited. Can you feed so many people?
Answer for brother: this is really a problem. As soon as the aging is solved, the initial change is that the number of deaths is gradually decreasing, so that it is far less than the number of births. At this stage, the population will increase greatly.
But let's think about it, is there another possibility-a person's life is so long, who is in a hurry to have children to carry on the family line? Nowadays, women don't get married early, and then they don't have to worry about having children late. The so-called high risk of having children after the age of 35 does not exist. In this way, the birth rate will naturally decrease.
If your imagination is not enough, you can refer to your neighbor Japan. After the war, the average life expectancy in Japan increased by 70%( 1947: 50 years, 20 17: 85 years). The population has increased from 83 million in 1950 to 20 1 1 280,000 a year. Then it began to reverse, and the total population was shrinking at a rate of 6.5438+0 million per year.
In terms of resources, I think that once the problem of immortality is solved, all living people are "young" and strong, not only not a burden to society, but also a continuous creator of social wealth. On the other hand, various diseases caused by aging (cancer, heart disease, senile syndrome, etc. More than 80% of medical resources are consumed, and the social security system is on the verge of collapse. This is really unsustainable. As soon as the problem of aging is solved, many knots in medical insurance and social security will be solved.
In addition, people who can live to 760 years old will not wantonly spoil the environment like my generation. After all, we have to live on the earth for hundreds of years. The destruction of the environment not only creates evil offspring, but also brings disaster to ourselves. Perhaps, at the age of several hundred years, he was charged with crimes against humanity by the Hague court, and then he was cornered.
Question 2: gene "preservation first"
Q: I said, brother, you are not the commander-in-chief of Greenpeace Water Army, are you? You may not answer this question. What I want to ask is, won't people lose their vitality and creativity when they are old and don't die? In addition, it will also make human beings miss the opportunity of evolution. Historically, the vast majority of innovations in science, literature and art have come from young people. Max Planck, the founder of quantum physics, pointed out that science advances in the funeral of scientists. In the iterative process of human nature, the superior and the inferior are eliminated, and bad genes are constantly eliminated, so that human beings can adapt to the living environment more and more and keep pace with the times. Otherwise, even if these people can live to be 760, who can guarantee that they can adapt to the natural environment at that time? When the time comes, everyone will be acclimatized, and who will be responsible for the extinction of mankind!
Answer: I can see that you really broke your heart for our common destiny. No one can predict the future. But we can infer what may happen according to the logic of the current development of science and technology. Let's talk about a few high probability events first.
Immortality, then creativity should not be reduced. Think about it. If every cell is 18 years old, shouldn't people's mentality and thinking be 18 years old? So creativity should be kept at a high level. At least in theory.
However, accidental death of human beings is still possible. Therefore, the adventurous spirit of human beings may be reduced: extreme sports, revolutions, wars and other life-threatening things will be instinctively avoided.
As for missing the opportunity of evolution, the relationship between evolution and death should be rebuilt. Biotechnology has been able to change the genes of living people. At present, CRISPR technology can accurately edit every gene of people. Once you find out which physical characteristics are not suitable for the environment, you need to adjust them, and you don't have to wait for the next generation, or the next few generations or dozens of generations. Immediately extract a cell, modify the gene in it, and then inject it back into the body. The new gene will soon change the body. Should this discomfort be improved? At least in theory!
Question 3: Who should I give the ticket to? What should I do if the villain doesn't die?
Q: Tell me something real. After 20 years, even if the "panacea" of "immortality" is successfully developed, it must be very expensive, right? How many people can afford it? Who will decide who can get the "panacea" and get the ticket for immortality? Rich and powerful people will definitely take advantage. Worse, what if tyrants and villains like Hitler and Voldemort live forever? What is there to look forward to?
Answer for brother: Khan! This answer will be very cold. Generally speaking, it always takes time to mass-produce new scientific and technological achievements. The upfront cost is generally high, so early users generally have to pay a higher price. Now the involvement of commercial organizations illustrates this problem, that is to say, whoever has money can get tickets, and those who don't have enough money can only watch themselves or their relatives leave. This has been raised to the moral level. At that time, the government may come forward to supervise.
Speaking of big bad guys, bad guys can live forever, so can good guys. Maybe I'm born optimistic. But among the richest people in the world today, good people still account for the majority, right? Bill Gates, Buffett, Zuckerberg, Larry Page, etc. Are more reliable. These people are trying to make the world a better place, and they also have many good deeds after work. Moreover, throughout history, these great tyrants and villains lived in an era when the forces of justice restricted them. I still firmly believe that civilization will continue to spiral upward.
Question 4: To be or not to be?
Q: My brother asked me if I would choose to live forever. I said without thinking: of course. If you can live very hard, why die! But then I thought about it and thought it was not that simple. Now I want to ask elder brother, will you choose to live forever?
Answer for brother: to tell the truth, I'm really a little tangled. As Jobs said, "The meaning of death is to let us know the value of life". If there were no more shadows of death, would you still cherish life and time so much? If you don't realize the meaning of life, there is no point in living forever.
In addition, I think that starting the Pandora's box of immortality before many basic social problems (such as the health and education of poor children) are solved may lead to and intensify a series of social problems.
Indeed, immortality will bring a series of challenges to human society. However, compared with the overall development of biotechnology, this is only the tip of the iceberg!
Since the emergence of life more than 4 billion years ago, life on earth has followed the law of natural selection put forward by Darwin-species that are not adapted to the natural environment will be naturally eliminated in the alternation of generations, and vice versa.
Nowadays, biotechnology is challenging Darwin. Humans can not only decide how long they live and what they evolve into, but also decide how long other species live and what they grow into.
My race is up to me I'm also in charge of other species!
This is not a challenge to Darwin! Isn't this a direct challenge to God? !
For such a big thing, every time I chat with idle people from all walks of life, if I don't agree, I will climb directly to the philosophical level and feel that Gordon is at a loss. Here are some unanswered questions.
Question A: Religious belief
Throughout history, human beings have been exploring some basic questions: what happens after death, what is the meaning of life, and so on. In this regard, religious beliefs try to answer our questions.
A religion needs to be able to explain the phenomena in real life in a reasonable way and defend itself, so that believers can yearn for the future world it depicts.
Once human beings can live forever, will they still yearn for heaven and fear hell? Will anyone accumulate virtue for the happiness of the "afterlife"?
If God is no longer the sole creator of all things, human beings can also create new creatures. Will people still believe in God?
Will there be a brand-new and more widely accepted religion or belief? When, where and in what form?
Question B: Sex, family and affection.
If you can live to 760, at what age will you get married and have children? Will you still get married, to say the least?
Are you willing to spend more than 700 years with the same person? In 700 years, your thoughts, hobbies and physical condition will be transformed n times, or even thoroughly remoulded. How deep can your love be and how long can your love last?
If sex change is made as easy as beauty by modifying genes, what form will love and marriage between people become?
When the life span is only 50 years, of which more than ten years are used to raise the next generation, family ties are naturally thicker than water. But if you live to be 700 years old, will you still be so grateful for the short-lived (more than ten years) upbringing hundreds of years ago? At this time, my parents are as young as you. Do they feel like peers in front of your 18 and 19 grandchildren?
Besides, should I have a DNA test before a one-night stand? The immediate family members separated by 18 generations all live in the world, and maybe they are no longer familiar with each other. What should I do if I accidentally make an appointment?
Question c: subspecies and new humans
The elite has the advantages of social resources and has the conditions to continuously optimize their own and ethnic genes. In the long course of life, they can set a small goal first: improve their IQ, EQ and physical strength by 10 times, and perhaps give themselves a beautiful face. Girls are comparable to Fan Bingbing, but boys can't beat Huang Xiaoming at all. Then, with the development of genetic technology, elites can upgrade themselves to "Superman" step by step. Compared with today's people, this superman may have changed beyond recognition, such as a pair of flexible wings.
So, can most other people, even immortal, keep up with the pace of evolution? Will this self-evolution of human beings differentiate into a series of superman, diaosi and "sub-species" between them?
Question D: Social and political patterns
There have always been different classes and inequalities in human society. But please imagine, if different social classes evolve into human sub-species with great physiological differences, can the value of "equality for all" still apply?
For example, elite subspecies with great physiological advantages will make greater contributions to society and have higher economic value. Most ordinary people's jobs will be replaced by artificial intelligence. Yuval Nova Harari, the author of A Brief History of Mankind and A Brief History of the Future, even concluded that most people would become "useless classes". Since it is useless, you have to enjoy completely equal treatment (such as social welfare, voting rights, etc.) Do you think Superman will accept it?
Is it possible to be equal between different subspecies? What will the future society, legal system, state and political system look like?
Immortality is a dream, but more and greater challenges follow.
That classmate asked: It was fine, how did we humans suddenly pass on such a big thing?
Because, there are two great forces, artificial intelligence and biological science, which are rapidly pushing mankind to a critical point. If artificial intelligence has an extraordinary influence on human life, then the tip of biotechnology points directly at the lifeblood of human beings. When scientists realize that the core of all life is nothing more than data and algorithms, these two forces are perfectly combined. And this historic combination will release thousands of times of energy and push mankind to a point of no return.