The earth is a beautiful planet of life. In addition to intelligent life human beings, there are more than millions of various creatures. Whether it is a simple life, a complex creature or an intelligent creature like human beings, there is a most basic natural law that we all need to abide by, and that is birth, old age, sickness and death.
The life span of different organisms is different. Some organisms have a life span of more than hundreds of years, while others have a very short life span, only a few days. And the life span of human beings can only be regarded as medium in the biological world, not short or too long. Other creatures can safely abide by the law of birth, old age, sickness and death, and after their life span is over, they can leave the world safely.
However, because human beings are intelligent lives, they are naturally unwilling to have such a short period of decades, so since ancient times, human beings have been searching for a way to live forever. Many emperors in ancient times, such as Qin Shihuang and Li Shimin, used various methods to search for the path to eternal life in their later years, but they all failed in the end.
Many people may think that immortality is always just a dream, which is obviously impossible from a scientific point of view. Therefore, in the scientific age, we do not study the law of immortality. Is this really the case? If you think so, you are quite wrong. When mankind enters the age of technology, the exploration and research on immortality has not decreased, but has increased.
In the eyes of scientists, everything in this universe is inseparable from science and can be explained by science. The birth, aging, sickness and death of life are naturally also a scientific law, as long as we crack the mystery of life, then it is possible to achieve immortality.
In order for human beings to realize immortality, we must first understand the mystery behind life and death, and we must understand clearly: why human beings have life and death instead of realizing eternal life? Only by understanding the mystery behind can we proceed to the next step of research and exploration, and finally achieve immortality through science.
So what exactly is the birth, aging, sickness and death of human beings? What factors determine? Scientists have discovered through continuous research that human aging is caused by the continuous loss of microstructures in the body, such as shortening of telomeres, exhaustion of stem cells, abnormal mitochondrial function… etc.
The influence of these various factors will cause human beings to continuously consume the various potentials of the body from the day of birth, various diseases will continue to appear, aging and finally death. Knowing this, does that mean that we can achieve immortality as long as we solve the various factors that affect life span?
This is true in theory, and the above consumption that affects human life span is not irreparable. Let’s take telomere shortening as an example. Telomeres are a small piece of DNA-protein complex that exists at the end of linear chromosomes in eukaryotic cells. Together with telomere-binding proteins, they form a special “cap” structure, whose role is to maintain chromosomes. The integrity and control of the cell division cycle.
Telomeres are like a cap that protects DNA. Every time a cell divides, it shortens a bit. When the telomere is shortened to a certain extent, the protective cap of DNA is gone, and the cell will no longer divide at this time. Without the constant renewal of new cells, the human body will quickly enter the aging stage.
Is telomere shortening irreversible? Of course not. Scientists have discovered that some special cells in the human body contain telomerase that can synthesize telomeres. But this kind of telomerase does not exist in ordinary cells, which puzzles scientists. Why?
We must know that the human body is a very complex life structure, and there are many mechanisms in this life body that manage our bodily functions. The human body itself has a very powerful self-repairing ability. This repairing ability can prevent us from disease or aging. In a sense, the powerful repairing ability of the human body can make us immortal. .
But the reality is that our body does not do this. For example, telomeres can be synthesized by telomerase in some special cells in the human body. If telomerase is also present in ordinary cells, the problem of telomere shortening will not exist, the protective cap of DNA will not disappear, and the cell can continue to divide.
Why don’t our bodies have strong repairing abilities? Who is controlling all this behind this? Scientists finally found the guy behind through research, which is the gene hidden in the human body. It is genes that determine all of this. It prevents the repair mechanism in the body from repairing indefinitely, preventing human beings from achieving immortality.
In a sense, human beings are just genetic wage earners, and all life on earth are biological individuals created by their own genes. Genes are the makers of the survival strategies of life forms, the makers of the laws of life forms, and the biological individual is only an executor and has no right to decide.
We cannot decide how long we can live, what kind of life forms we can have, all of which are determined by genes. We only need to accept the genetic rules and orders to strictly enforce them. If the individual organisms do not enforce them, then what awaits them will be extinction.
So why did genes do this? Isn’t eternal life incense? For humans, immortality is very attractive, but for genes, immortality is a huge shackle. The purpose of genes is very simple, that is, to maximize their chances of survival, and to continuously improve the level of genes.
We must understand that human genes are different from those of other organisms. Human genes are more advanced than those of other organisms. That’s why we become intelligent life. Genes want to maximize their chances of survival and continuously upgrade to become more advanced genes. Two methods are needed to achieve this.
One is to increase the life cycle and number of life individuals as much as possible, so when genes create biological individuals, they must have the ability to reproduce offspring. Propagating offspring has two advantages. One is that it can increase the number of its own population, and the other is that the population can use genetic mutations to adapt to the ever-changing natural environment in the process of reproduction.
However, we still have to face a cruel fact in the reproduction of offspring, that is, nature’s resources are limited. If a species does not die, through continuous reproduction of offspring, it will not take long for the species to become overwhelmed. The resources of nature simply cannot meet the needs of survival, and the final outcome is extinction.
When living things go extinct, genes naturally disappear. In order to avoid this situation, genes have shielded organisms from a lot of powerful repair capabilities, giving organisms a law of life and death. Let part of the biological human body die out, so that the resources can satisfy the survival of the living body.
So which biological entities should be allowed to die? Of course it is those who are old. If the organism is like a biological machine, then the operation of the machine needs maintenance. The longer a machine is used, the higher the maintenance cost. For a biological entity, the maintenance cost is the consumption of resources.
It can be seen that it is a very wise choice for genes to perish organisms that have been used for longer periods of time. If the second gene wants to be upgraded and become a higher-order gene, it needs continuous mutation and evolution. The faster the mutation speed, the higher the possibility of becoming a higher-order gene.
If organisms live forever, the gene exchange of individual organisms will slow down, and the frequency of mutations will drop significantly, which is very unfavorable to the evolution of genes. In this case, the boss of Gene is naturally willing, and it will use its own privileges to restrict change for all obstacles that stand in the way of its evolution.
So can human beings be the masters of the house and the boss of genes in the future? The answer is yes, no matter how powerful a gene is, it is also a product of the rules of nature, and it is the laws of nature that determine the laws of genes. In other words, nature is the boss above genes, and everything in nature is within the scope of science, and science is the real big boss above nature.
Human beings have embarked on the road of scientific development, that is, they are constantly mastering the mysteries of science. When we have mastered science, we will become the bosses of nature, and genes are the wage earners of human beings. At that time, we can change the gene, let it let go of the powerful repair mechanism in the human body, and let us achieve true immortality.
Of course, this road is not easy to follow. If human beings want to master genes and let it work for us, they need to continue to work hard to research and develop science. Only when the power of science is strong enough can we hope that genes can truly serve us and human beings can achieve immortality.