The mystical Fountain of Youth so long sought after... What if it were real, and the key to life could be discovered in an 18-year old girl that, for all intents and purposes, is a baby? What if, in the future, you could live forever? Would eternity overall bring goodness or badness? Would laws be created so that people weren't allowed to live forever? Considering resources are scarce and finite, would there be laws against having children? For those of you who believe in God, do you think this is what God would want? Transhumanists fully believe that we will get there. Should we want to?
FTA:
Brooke Greenberg is almost 18, but she has remained mentally and physically at the level of a toddler. An American physician is trying to uncover the child's secret, because he wants to give mankind the gift of eternal life.
It is possible that the key to immortality is hidden in this delicate girl, who is only about 76 centimeters (2 feet, 6 inches) tall and weighs seven kilograms (15.4 pounds)...
Other girls her age are driving, going out dancing and sleeping with their first boyfriends. But for Brooke it's as if time had stood still. Mentally and physically, the girl remains at the level of an 11-month-old baby.
"Brooke is a miracle," says her father, Howard Greenberg. "Brooke is a mystery," says Lawrence Pakula, her pediatrician. "Brooke is an opportunity," says Richard Walker, a geneticist with the University of South Florida College of Medicine. They all mean the girl from Reisterstown, a small town in the US state of Maryland, who may hold the answer to a human mystery. At issue is nothing less than immortality: Brooke Greenberg apparently isn't aging...
If scientists can figure out what is causing the disorder, it might be possible to unlock the mysteries of aging itself. "Then we've got the golden ring," says Walker.
He hopes to simply eliminate age-related diseases like cancer, dementia and diabetes. People who no longer age will no longer get sick, he reasons. But he also thinks eternal life is conceivable. "Biological immortality is possible," says Walker. "If you don't get hit by a car or by lightning, you could live at least 1,000 years."
Brooke the Immortal - An American Child May Hold Secrets to Aging
DISCUSS!
Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Oct 31, 2010 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=367
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