Aging: designed to die? | Zendy

Thomas B. L. Kirkwood | Zendy

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Aging: designed to die?

Author(s) -

Thomas B. L. Kirkwood

Publication year - 2015

Publication title -

the biochemist

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.126

H-Index - 7

eISSN - 1740-1194

pISSN - 0954-982X

DOI - 10.1042/bio03704008

Subject(s) - longevity , natural selection , adaptation (eye) , natural (archaeology) , consistency (knowledge bases) , selection (genetic algorithm) , continuation , process (computing) , psychology , genealogy , computer science , gerontology , biology , history , artificial intelligence , medicine , neuroscience , paleontology , programming language , operating system

Aging is a normal biological process that occurs in every human being who manages to escape the fate of a premature death. On the whole, there is a consistency about aging's hallmarks such that we can judge a person's age pretty accurately at just a glance. What is more natural, then, than to suppose that aging has been fashioned by natural selection as an adaptation in its own right, perhaps to clear the older generations out of the way and make room for the new ones? Longevity runs in families, which means that genes are involved1. Doesn't this imply that aging itself follows a genetic programme, perhaps merely a continuation of the same programming that gave shape to our bodies' growth and development?

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