Immortality.

Immortality by Ben Bova (New York: Avon Books, 1998); 283 pp,; $24,00 cloth,

Late in 1998, political consultant Dick Morris gave a speech on C-SPAN in which he asked: "What are we going to do about Social Security when it becomes common for people to live to be 120 years old?" This seems a remarkable statement, especially for someone in politics. Morris might have come to this conclusion simply by reading science articles and projecting ever longer life-spans from current events--or he might have read Ben Bova's Immortality.

Bova is the author of more than ninety novels, an award-winning editor, and president emeritus of the National Space Society. Like his late friend Isaac Asimov--to whom he dedicated Immortality--Bova writes both science fiction and science fact, is concerned with the future of humanity, and has the ability to convey complex ideas in a clear, direct manner.

A thousand years ago the human life expectancy was thirty-five years. In 1935, when many of today's senior citizens were young, life expectancy was sixty years. And by 1997 it had risen to seventy-nine years. That it will continue to rise is a surety.

However, perhaps all of us have wished we could stop the aging process and remain young and vigorous. To accomplish this, Bova says science needs to have detailed knowledge of how aging occurs and a plan to slow, stop, or even reverse the process at the cellular level. He discusses three ways in which we age.

The first is through cell damage from free radicals, particularly oxygen free radicals. Although oxygen is essential to life, it is a corrosive element that causes paper to yellow and iron to rust. The second way is through glucose browning, a natural process that causes collagen--which makes up skin, lungs, and connective tissues--to deteriorate.

Most responsible for our dying from the results of old age, however, is a process revealed by the Geron Corporation in January 1998 called telomere shortening. Inside our cells, at the tip of chromosomes, are telomeres that keep the chromosomes from sticking to each other. When the cell divides, a piece of the telomere breaks off. With each cell division, the telomere becomes shorter until it is gone, at which point the chromosomes become entangled, the cell cannot divide, and the programmed cell death called apoptosis occurs.

Bova discusses the common misconception that immortality isn't a natural process. Bacteria don't age; likewise for cancer cells, human germ cells, ova, and sperm. And in 1998, Geron cloned the enzyme telomerase--which rebuilds telomeres--and introduced it into human cells, thereby extending their life. Bova also reviews other scientific test results that show promise in extending life--such as hormone replacement therapy; the nutritional supplement DHEA and low-calorie diets; and the drug deprenyl, currently used to control symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

Genetic engineering is at the stage where we are learning to do things at the cellular level that bacteria and viruses have been doing for millions of years. We have the potential to prevent or cure cystic fibrosis and certain types of diabetes and cancers through genetic engineering. Through cloning and stem cell and fetal cell research, we will be able to grow organs for use as transplants that have no rejection problems. Bova also predicts regenerative technology will replace many present-day cosmetic surgery procedures.

However, the technology that seems most like science fiction but Bova believes has vast potential is nanotechnology. If you could assemble microscopic machines programmed to perform specific tasks--like cleaning the inside of your arteries, recognizing and attacking individual cancer cells, destroying AIDS viruses, or delivering minute quantities of medicine to specific cells--many of our most serious medical problems could be solved. Bova says:

   We face three possible futures, as far as life extension and immortality
   are concerned. In one, the researches now underway are suppressed. In the
   second, they are controlled by an elite group. In the third, they are
   shared with the entire world.

There will be those who say that science is playing God. The idea of living for hundreds of years strikes at the very foundations of religion, because science is offering what religions can only promise.

And if we solve the aging problem--which some experts think we will do in the next fifty years--then it will change the way we think about many things. How will we view marriage? Will we still say "until death do us part"? How will that affect Social Security, retirement, life imprisonment, and the death penalty? How will it change our interpersonal relationships and our views toward children? Bova points out that we wouldn't be able to put off problems--like environmental degradation, global warming, and overpopulation--because we won't be dead and gone by then.

Will wisdom come with age? How will humanists formulate a commonsense strategy for a future that may be sooner than we think? Bova says, "I believe there is no moral injunction against our efforts to extend life-span, just as there was no moral injunction against the practice of medicine. Perhaps I won't want to live forever, but it's a choice I would like to be able to make for myself."

David Silva is a founding member of the Humanist Association of Orange County and editor of its monthly newsletter. He also edited the newsletter for the Orange County Science Fiction Club and has a lifelong interest in science and technology.