The biology of death: origins of mortality

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Average Rating
Publisher
Comstock Pub. Assocites
Publication Date
2004.
Language
English

Description

Why do we die? Do all living creatures share this fate? Is the body's slow degradation with the passage of time unavoidable, or can the secrets of longevity be unlocked? Over the past two decades, scientists studying the workings of genes and cells have uncovered some of the clues necessary to solve these mysteries. In this fascinating and accessible book, two neurobiologists share the often-surprising findings from that research, including the possibility that aging and natural death may not be forever a certainty for most living beings. André Klarsfeld and Frédéric Revah discuss in detail the latest scientific findings and views on death and longevity. They challenge many popular assumptions, such as the idea that the death of individual organisms serves to rejuvenate species or that death and sexual reproduction are necessarily linked. Finally, they describe current experimental approaches to postpone natural death in lower organisms as well as in mammals. Are all organisms that survive until late in life condemned to a "natural" death, as a consequence of aging, even if they live in a well-protected, supportive environment? The variability of the adult life span—from a few hours for some insects to more than a millennium for the sequoia and thirteen times that for certain wild berry bushes—challenges the notion that death is unavoidable. Evolutionary theory helps explain why and how some species have achieved biological mechanisms that seemingly allow them to resist time. Death cannot be understood without looking into cells—the essential building blocks of life. Intriguingly, at the level of cells, death is not always an accident; it is often programmed as an indispensable aspect of life, which benefits the organism as a whole.

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ISBN
9780801441189

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Choice Review

Originally published in French, this book begins with a historical overview of the study of aging and death. Subsequent chapters examine the definitions of aging and mortality, species' differences in longevity, evolutionary theories of senescence and death, fundamental mechanisms of aging, programmed cell death, loss of control of programmed cell death, delaying death, and the reasons that death occurs. Klarsfeld (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and Revah (Cerep) follow the story of Alexis Carrel, who, in the first half of the 20th century, made a convincing case that cells grown in culture do not age, and the discovery by Leonard Hayflick in the early 1960s of a simple error by Carrel that made this "accepted fact" suddenly ridiculous. The book defines aging relative to mortality, noting that many early ideas about the causes of aging were based on teleology, circular reasoning, and value judgments. Once these questionable bases of "scientific" thought are eliminated, the phenomena of aging and eventual death become more easily understandable. A couple of caveats: (1) the authors do not specifically differentiate between aging and senescence; (2) many of the general references are published in French (though most of the specialized references are in English). ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers; two-year technical program students; undergraduate and graduate students. L. A. Meserve Bowling Green State University

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