The following is more tangentially related to the article then a direct comment about the interesting points it makes. An interesting hypothesis I read about a

The following is more tangentially related to the article then a direct comment about the interesting points it makes. An interesting hypothesis I read about aging was that it's an anticancer mechanism necessary to become old enough to reproduce. The cellular metabolic process creates a lot free radicals that cause damage, while the body has built in mechanisms to repair the damage at high rates of replication the chance of damage resulting in turning on an oncogene increases. In order to combat this the body slows down its division process to prevent the likelihood of cancer but as a side effect we experiencing the symptoms of aging and inevitable death (usually by cancer if you live long enough to get it). Not sure if any of this is accurate, but the idea is interesting and something I hadn't thought of. It also introduces problems since if at all accurate trying to prevent aging may result in higher cancer risk. Talk of this also reminds me of a quote I like (from http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs-documentation/ http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs-...): "We all express the symptoms of a fatal, inherited degenerative condition called aging - or so the joke goes. It's a dark joke, but there's truth to be found in it, as is often the case in black humor. Unfortunately, all too few people think of themselves as patients suffering aging, and fewer still would call themselves patient advocates, agitating for research leading towards therapies and cures for aging. This is a sorry state of affairs: given that our time is limited and ticking away, the tasks upon the table should always include some consideration of aging. What can we do about it? How can we engineer a research community, funding and support to make real progress within our lifetimes? If you don't spend at least some of your time on this issue, then you're fiddling while Rome burns. Time is the most precious thing we have, and we live on the cusp of technologies that will allow us to gain more of it - but those advances in medicine won't happen soon enough unless we work at it."