| |  Aging is what happens to people after they have passed the point of maximum fecundity.
Mike, Deinococcus is an interestingly named bug, if you know the Greek and Latin. The problem is that having such a DNA repair gene (1) only works at the moment of damage, since otherwise a misrepair is inevitably made, leaving what might be looked at analogously to a smooth scar which leaves an underlying flaw in the record, (2) any mutations not caused by radiation, such as mismatches during cell division, and congenitally inherited mutations are not touched, and (3) such mutations in DNA are only a small portion of aging in humans. Basically, this gene can be seen as one that fixes fraying strands, but doesn't reattach ropes, rewind misbraids or untie knots, or shorten or lengthen planks. Only the boy Jesus did that in Joseph's workshop.
Much of aging is caused by damage to structural substances, almost all proteins, and some sugars. These "gum up" the works. These items are usually replaced over time by cell death and replacement and by other mechanisms, but at an always diminishing rate. Remember how a cut at age six healed in days, but now takes weeks? Sagging body parts have nothin to do with mutations per se. Fixing mutations (like correcting blueprints) does nothing to replace rotten timbers, or fix cracked windshields already in place. Bacteria are in a sense immortal, since unless they are destroyed, they continue to split and to go on ticking. But this type of immortality is analogous to the immortality of the human bloodline. If you have progeny, then your gametes and their progeny lucky enough to become fertile parents themselves will be immortal. Your brain is part of the husk, it does not split and follow the bloodline, and souls are not the sort of things that will ever be downloadable. I am sure that we could make replacement machines that would be convinced that they were us. But just because I am convinced that I am Napoleon doesn't make Napoleon immortal.
The best I see people hoping for is a slow down of aging due to eugenics, (if only men over 90 could sire children, we could double the lifespan in three generations,) gene therapy, stem cell research, and medicine inspired thereupon, as well as the regrowth of certain body tissues, and the "cloning" of organs, which will be hard to do without the cloning of entire pesky individuals.
Aging is what happens to people after they have passed the point of maximum fecundity. At that point, nature gets a better return on children then on fixing obsolete models.
People fixated on Ray Kurtzweil's fantasies are in for disapointment. And none of this will help when the mullah beheads you, unless the marines break in an save the brain within about 120 seconds.
Ted
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