The Long Tomorrow: How Advances in Evolutionary Biology Can Help Us Postpone Aging

by Michael R. Rose

Book Overview

The conquest of aging is now within our grasp. It hasn't arrived yet, writes Michael R. Rose, but a scientific juggernaut has started rolling and is picking up speed. A long tomorrow is coming.
In The Long Tomorrow, Rose offers us a delightfully written account of the modern science of aging, spiced with intriguing stories of his own career and leavened with the author's engaging sense of humor and rare ability to make contemporary research understandable...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195179390
• ISBN13: 9780195179392
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.6" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Good book to read, great with evolution

This book was amazing and awesome. You will learn a lot about aging from fruit flies. When I finished this book, I was surprised that a new author's first book was really good. I think biologist and scientist will enjoy this book.

Summary of What Causes us to Grow Old

Evolutionary biology attempts to explain how we age by looking at genes within our DNA that either allow or force our bodies to age. Unfortunately in nature's desire to populate the planet, it doesn't select for these genes as dominate. Nature makes us want to have offspring young. Just look at the teenage pregnancy rate. Artificially we have learned that selective breeding in race horses, show dogs, prize winning cattle, and other animals have produced new animals with desirable traits. Dr. Rose's research used fruit flies to produce new generations that lived longer. Could similar selective breeding in humans produced a longer lived race. Probably, but it would take centuries. Can we extend longevity through diet, drugs and medicine - yes, we already have, and are continuing to do so. Combining all of this, Dr. Rose has written a book that summarized the current state of knowlege in the field. The science fiction readers of Robert Heinlein's Lazarus Long books reflect a similar story, the hero is the result of centuries of such breeding.