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First of all i ask you for some tolerance when it come to grammar in this topic, because i gonna try go in something with content i dont really know how to explain on english.

I read an article in a paper about some scientists that have discovered a way to see how long you have left to live by checking the lenght of something called teloner (dont know if i spelled correct or even correct name there. sorry) . Anyway it is a interesting thing because if they really find that key so do i think we have comed 1 step closer the ability to cheat death and live longer, maybe even for eternity. If it is true they have finded the key to what set the lenght of the life so why couldent they then find a way to change that key and manipulate it?

Im taking a shot here,but I think you might be talking of Telomeres.I had read several years back, As they deteriorate,damage from free radicals etc.. erodes the Telmeres (end of dna strand).As a result,so does our cellular structure.

I think the process is careplicative senescence .

Thank you Telemeres was the word for it.

Even if they did find a way, they have no clue to determine if an accident will strike and end our lives sooner.

Or if a murder were to happen.

your physical body has its limits and simply isn't meant to survive forever, as for an afterlife I believe there is but that's based on your religious beliefs

manipulating things that you don't fully understand can turn out bad, so I'd suggest not doing it because you could screw up and die sooner

everything depend in the individual way of living. I work for a hospital and let me tell you, (no offense to those who smoke) the people that smoke, after doing so for 5 years, if you put them together with the non smoker, the smoker look like life took a big toll in them. The asphyxiation of human tissues during smoking, is catastrophic. Another way is Sugar and the Brain. Do you know that your brain hate Sugar because can deteriorate the cells within? like someone said, accidents can kill you any second. only take one alcoholic to get behind a wheel and you be at the wrong place and WHAMMMM...you are dead.

This is an interesting topic it would be nice if you dont have any accidents to know generally how long you have to live and to plan your life accordingly.

Life should not be controlled. Knowledge is indeed power but it can be a curse as for example, a person finds out when they will die....if they are the fearful type which most humans are, then they will become obsessed with cheating death.

Would you really want to know when you would die?

I think many would obsess over it. Imagine at a certain age, one is told the year of their demise- would they strive to do anything important with their life? What if one was to die at a fairly young age? Would they push the limits and break a record? Be something with their lives? Or would they sit back, living off of whatever they could, knowing whatever they did was for nothing?

Then there would be those who pushed themselves to exhaustion, knocking on death's door trying to accomplish something they deem important before their time has come to an end, being so focused on it that they don't stop to simply enjoy life before it's too late.

I don't think I would want to know. I think I would rather live life knowing my end will be a mystery until it happens. I think that's one of the mysterious things about life- how it ends.

you cant know when you will diewhats the use of predicting using that if u get hit by a car and die. Even if they could know, u would be better off not knowing

They're called telomeres. They're bundles of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of each chromosome which protects it from damage, deterioration, etc.

In humans specifically they are subject to what's called the Hayflick limit - which is the number of times a mature human cell divides until the telomeres are so short that division ceases. The limit is 40-60 divisions. After that, the cell will die. (almost all lifeforms are subject to a limit)

There is a VERY good reason to have "programmed cellular death" and that is to prevent the development of bad mutations and cancerous cells. The longer an organism lives the greater chance of developing cancer and thus a painful death...as well as the possibility of passing on defective genes (due to age) and causing a population wide genetic disorder.

The commonly accepted maximum natural lifespan (barring disease) of humans is 100-120 years (obviously some will live longer).

Now, finding ways of either lengthening them or at least keeping them from shortening would increase longevity. It would also increase your risk of dying from other types of diseases as well as accidents.

While the notion of immortality (or even living to 300) seems like a good goal it would have profound implications. Given the limits of agriculture, natural resources etc, the ONLY way we could possibly live longer with a good quality of life is if we stopped having children. Reproduction must be slowed and limited to only replacing a person who has died. I don't know about you but I don't like the way that sounds.

200 years ago the average lifespan was 35, today it's pushing 80. Advances in medical technology, healthier lifestyles, etc will lead to longer lives but we must be ready to accept a vastly higher number of diseases (namely heart disease, kidney disease and cancer) as we age because we evolved to DIE at a certain point.

Indeed, One should not be able to have children if they can live longer than a few hundred years. Just look at how populated this planet is already people on average only live to 60-to-90 depending on gender of course (women naturally live longer) imagine how worse that can be if they lived longer.
To preserve balance, a trade off should happen. sterility for longer life.

Hey even the alchemist in the days of old tryed to find such information so I say good for them.

I would not want to know when i was "scheduled" to die - I'd rather enjoy life everyday as it comes. Its awesome that they can figure these things out but i'd be happier not knowing

This year, several companies will be selling tests — available through doctors — that measure telomeres, key genetic markers that researchers have linked to health and longevity. The science behind them is so tantalizing that some have touted the tests as the key to understanding mortality. But a number of researchers contend that the science is still far too young for test results to be truly revealing. Tests should not be used, they argue, outside a research setting.

Even two of the scientists who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for their telomere research differ on whether a telomere test can currently be used to predict long-term health. Although both believe that analyzing telomeres will become an important medical tool over the next 10 to 20 years, they split over whether we know enough about these structures now to use them to gauge health and aging.

One of the Nobel Prize winners, Elizabeth H. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, has cofounded a company — Telome Health — to offer a telomere test to the public. The other, Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins University, says a lot more research is needed to understand the relationship between telomeres and disease.
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So what are telomeres and should you have yours measured?

Telomeres are the protective caps on the ends of the chromosomes that keep them from fraying when cells divide. Scientists know that telomeres shorten as people age, and that eventually telomeres become so short that the cells cannot reproduce, and they die. Also, certain diseases that cause rapid, repeated cell division are known to shorten telomeres. Studies have linked increasing numbers of short telomeres to a shorter life span and to the development of age-related diseases, including lung disease, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Scientists are years away from being able to lengthen telomeres in humans, but some research in mice shows promise. In 2010 Harvard-affiliated scientists genetically engineered mice to age quickly by turning off the enzyme that maintains telomeres. When they reactivated that enzyme, it led to dramatic reversals in age-related diseases. The researchers expected the aging process to slow or even stop, but the experiment actually reversed the aging process. The mice began to regrow tissue in the spleen, testes and brain.

"It was akin to a Ponce de Leon effect," senior researcher Ronald DePinho, who is now president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, told the Harvard Gazette. Scientists may have not found the mythical Fountain of Youth, but the possibilities that telomere research holds are intriguing.

"This unique biomarker might help people think more about prevention of disease and monitoring their health earlier in life," says Elissa Epel, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who cofounded Telome Health. She says the goal of the tests is to monitor this marker, and individuals should view their results as simply "a risk factor just like any other risk factor."


Ozzy Osborn just had this test done

I would want to know my death date, I would plan my life better and do less mistakes, then if an accident happens then cest la vie! However I wouldnt try to live longer.

I dont think I would want to know.. I think that when that date was approaching I would be having a massive melt down..

I don't honestly believe that the amount of time left in our lives can be measured. There are just too many unknowns such as diseases, accidents, and not meaning to be insensible but suicide as well. I believe they can measure length of life if you were to die of old age but I don't believe it would be accurate due to the multiples of variables that could end a life prematurely.

Let me make this clear, no scientist can tell exactly when a person is going to die...period.

We can figure out how long people *should* live, within a few years, but doing something as simple as sun bathing regularly can toss those numbers right out the window.

Science is amazing but it can't predict individual, random behviour or the outcome of multiple variables with any real certainty (like diet + family history + driving sills + hunting + sports + tanning + smoking + drinking + ....).

Hell, figuring out the long term future positions of the planets or asteroids requires a massive super computer and that's just using a very simple equation!

Indeed and life should not be predicted.
The only way someone can truly predict when someone is going to die is by killing them i.e "I bet you will die in 5 seconds* five secs up and bang...or a slash.

Messing with human DNA is a bad idea. That is how we end up with things like the living dead. All they have to do is make them smart and we are screwed.

Just an opinion here, but what would you do if the blood sucking vampyres, flesh eating zombies (that were smart), and brutally inhuman werewolves were actually walking the streets killing everyone they could not turn to their race?

Before I read any further I must respond to the following post:



KurlyQ4196

"manipulating things that you don't fully understand can turn out bad, so I'd suggest not doing it because you could screw up and die sooner"



I don't fully understand vaccines or antibiotics but I take them in order to prolong my life anyway. But I am a firm believer that knowledge is power so knowing when your cellular structure will break down enough to end your life is a wonderful thing to know. What people do with it is entirely up to them but the reality of it is if you don't smoke or drink and eat relatively healthy, aside for accidents, you will more likely have a very long life ahead of you, so why would anyone sweat it? Most people don't even like the lives they lead to begin with, yet they want more time, for what? I am certain that most of you have seen my stance on eternity but here it is again since the subject seems to be covered in nearly every thread I have been to so far.

Eternity, imagine that. Imagine eternity. Given eternity everything that can be accomplished will be accomplished. Beyond all achievements there would be only limitless, pointless, existence.

100
The first hundred years may be possible,
1000
The first thousand years more painful,
10000
The first ten thousand insufferable, but this is just the start.
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.....

An eternity would be hell, so why would you want it? I can understand wanting to live longer and in good health but forever? Not me, not in any form.

I really don't think its ever possible to determine the date of a persons death

I would say in honesty that my opinion is divided

part of me would want to know when, as to figure out : should I plan this or that, or this other thing, for example should I go back to school and do a new technic class or simply keep my current job

part of me is NO I do not want to know when, so I wont stop living and just count time as to time is diminushing, for example, i need to get a new house now cuz i will die in an appartement

part of me is like: knowing would allow me to also enjoy little details of life, which not knowing also would, for example I look at a rose's petal, and I do not see the color. I see the colors, the lines of the photsyntesis in the veins of the petal, i see the multiple changes in it, as it is right there in front of my eyes, i see its scent particules being lifted as the sun shift around it, i see a sort of cloud, mini, almost invisible, completly clear but still there if you take the time to just look, i see the shivering of the petal as sun touches it and the humidity of the air and the wind caresses it, and this is just one petal I am looking at, I have'nt even smelled it yet...


anyway my 2 cents :)

part me would want to know, other part would not

Only a melodramatic person or a walking cliche will say immortality is bad. Too many broody vampires movie eh? Granted that population is a problem and so immortality for humanity is unacceptable but this thread topic is not about living forever, its about knowing when you will all die which will happen. If you know your death date, you will obsess over it and will never live a happy care free life ever again.