ETERNAL LIFE (Part 2)

The following is from Chapter 2 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity on Eternal Life.

The Fountain of Youth

The whole concept of immortality started, murkily enough, in the 4th century BC, involving Alexander the Great and the Water of Life (see painting above). In the 5th century BC, Greek historian Herodotus, speculated on a fountain in Ethiopia for the people there then appeared to live longer.

Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon was on Columbus' second journey, and became Puerto Rico's first governor. While he is generally reported to have searched for the fountain of youth in Florida, and is credited with "finding" that appendage, a closer truth is probably that he explored Bimini to find something to cure his sexual impotency. Anyway, in St. Augustine, Florida is the Fountain of Youth National Archeological Park, where de Leon was supposed to have landed. Tourists come to drink the waters, even though no one believes it has any powers of longevity.

But there is a secret society in this city claiming to be protectors of THE fountain. Las Vegas illusionist David Copperfield, it is reported, has a fountain of youth on his island of Musha Cay, and has promised to have biologists test it. It would be pathetic if some scientist actually takes this on with some seriousness.

You can improve your odds to live longer through the luck of good genes and by: having a strong social network (your family), more education (which is correlated to a better health plan), dedicated flossing (gum disease affects the heart), good bowel movements (to reduce colon cancer), not smoking (although an unexpected number of really old people smoke a lot), getting married but not having children, living in a healthier environment, eating smart and less, maintaining an elevated level of high density lipoprotein in your blood, minimizing inflammation, exercising, sleeping more or less (both seem to work) and minimizing stress.

Wikipedia has an entry for immortality, but much of the 23 pages dallies on spiritualism and fictional works. But, in this chapter, I plan to take it to the limit: real, scientific, eternal life. One can go back to the Egyptians and wander through religion (which will be covered in Chapter 5), but the only focus of this chapter will thus be to explore the scientific validity for immortality. How did I first get interested in this field? (Next, my life in bioengineering.)

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The Dow Jones Industrial surged 104 to 8404. Gold also jumped, $16/toz to $961. Crude oil went past $65/barrel, but settled just below.

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The GM bondholders blinked, as earlier predicted, and did so because of a reasonably good deal: 10% instead of 1% of shares, plus rights to buy up to 15% later at a low cost. There are now no hurdles to solvency, but it is appearing that the Feds actually want a bankrupt GM to make the transition to success cleaner and easier. This scenario eliminates current stockholder investments. The new GM might repay $10 billion of the total $50 billion bailout money (total to be provided when the dust clears). Further, we will own up to 72.5% of the company. The only return will come if the new GM is fabulously successful.

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