Imagine playing football at
age of 239 with your grand-grand-grand children. Imagine donating blood at age of 172. Imagine traveling into an inter-galactic spaceship to andromeda galaxy. Imagine not getting common cold at all. And imagine not having to see those AIDS awareness ads because AIDS being a history, taught in Medieval History-101. And imagine living to see Indian football team qualify for FIFA world cup. No, you are not being taken to utopia; instead, I’m trying to propel your minds towards future, which is nearer than ever before. The fear of death is most common of all phobias we know. No one wants to die. To imagine death is worst punishment one can ever give. History has seen many heroes abandoning their quests just because they feared death. People may spend their fortune on treatments without guarantees of 100% recoveries. Now question arises, if death is so dreadful then why it is so common?
Death rides following reasons:
* Hunger: This factor is a major cause of deaths in poorer nations. There are many organizations working to free food distribution process from bureaucracy but a lot of work still needs to be done.
* Accidents: These are mainly caused to negligence and carelessness. In this high-tech convergent world everyone is busy with his personal bunch of gizmos, unaware of precautionary measures. This carelessness isn’t safe. In nutshell, people are just too busy.
* Wars: This is most shameful aspect of human species. Wars can be avoided and with them million of deaths. Only some social engineering is needed. Governments spend most of their GDP on defense research. This money can be put into more useful bio-researches leading to fewer diseases and lower mortality rate.
* Natural disasters: The inevitable factor. At present we can only predict but can not prevent natural disasters. We are left at mercy of our so called Mother Earth unless we colonize other planets.
* Ageing: Evolution made humans mortal. Our bodies are just here to reproduce and nurture our kids to a level where they can reproduce. Then, biologically, our bodies become worthless – Telomeres have to shed its size. They are not required by evolutionary process anymore, so we die.
* Diseases: Survival of fittest. Charles Darwin gave world this famous theory. It implied that we survive to be fit. And if we’re diseased we cannot be fit. When those tiny pathogenic agents attack our body we fall sick. This is because they are genetically fitter than, us, mighty humans. Our bodies were not made to fight these agents and we fall prey to their attack. There are two ways to attack disease. Either change our bodies (genome) to be able to fight or hinder functioning of agents or eliminate them. Either way it is difficult so, presently, we are left with our sickening genome which we are unable to edit. Its mutation is left to evolution alone.
Well accidents can be prevented if awareness about their prevention is spread. This is area where mass media has to play its role. And Wars can be prevented by peace movements and social engineering. And as far as natural disasters are concerned we can only plead to engineers to make structures safer. It is their duty to make structures capable of coping with natural disasters suffering minimum damage to lives. But, it is last two factors namely ageing and diseases, which are being described as The Holy Grail of Science.
