The idea of progress: The quest for eternal youth and immortality

The idea of progress: The quest for eternal youth and immortality

The notion I am going to present today is “The idea of progress”.

To begin with, I would like first to define this notion.

The idea of progress can be defined as an improvement, a development or a change which contributes to making the world a better place. These progresses can be made in different fields as science (medical advance, cloning, …) , technology (hybrid cars to slow down climate change, internet & mobile phone for communication advances, robots, …) & social with changes in quality of life.

To illustrate this notion, I choose to talk about the quest for eternal youth and immortality.

To what extent the immortality can return the better life of the man? Which are the ways to reach there?

Life extension technologies promise a path to complete rejuvenation. Cryonics holds out the hope that the dead can be revived in the future. While, as shown with creatures such as Hydra, it is indeed possible for a creature to be immortal; it is not yet known if it is possible for Humans.

Since 1880’s spectacular advances were realized in 3 key domains:

1/ Medical Area: The progress in medical research permitted us to better know about the human being. Indeed, development of news drugs and vaccines stretched out the lifespan.

2/ Food Area: A lot of progress has also been made in the nutrition Industry using technical science with, for example, discovering of deep freezing at the beginning of the 20th Century until the marketing agreement for genetically modified foods twenty years ago.

3/ Hygiene Area: Discoveries of Louis Pasteur and his germ theory of disease have permitted to increase significantly life expectancy.

For next decades, there are new types of technology that are expected to lead to eternal life.

The video « Are Humans becoming immortal? » illustrates this very well by showing 3 types of technology:

1/ The cryonics method consists to store the body at low temperatures after death for a long period, with the hope that medical advances will find solution to cure all disease and someday allow cryopreserved people to be revived.

2/ The Nanotechnology has the goal to develop materials with dimensions on the nanoscale to direct control of matter on the atomic scale. The technology can be used in a lot of different fields including the medicine. It is already used for the treatment of the cancer by delivering the drug to specific cells.

3/ The enzyme manipulation is used in the genetic engineering that can be defined as the Process of inserting new genetic information into existing cells in order to modify a specific organism for the purpose of changing its characteristics.

An organism that is generated through genetic engineering is considered to be a genetically modified organism (GMO).

In addition to these examples other technologies are currently tested such as cloning and body part replacement, cyborgs, anti-aging drugs, ….

Many scientists are working on these

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