When you start reading, a few things immediately touch you Why do we die. In a random order: Biology is so complex and so meticulously tuned that we can never fully understand ourselves that the author of this book reminds one of Oliver Goldsmith one of the school masters, “a small head can carry everything he knows”, and a book about medicine and science can be well told, besides being so funny and fascinating and awesome.
Venki Ramakrishnan, of course, is a Nobel Prize-winning biologist who shared his work in the ribosome at Nobel in 2009. But that’s not the only reason to read the book.
Why do we die Explore the many ways of working in the body and the various research institutions that study the way we work, and why we work the way we do, and the enormous effort to try to study how to change the way we work.
In a sense, research on diseases is also a study on lifespan. But because we are such a complex organism with such a fine hair width process that can run machines, no one’s answer is enough. So when humans try to decipher themselves and the problems that have long tortured us, we delve into the history of science, into philosophical and moral issues, to become the best and somewhat distorted ideas: Why do we die.
As Ramakrishnan reveals, even that is not an easy question to answer. He has a storyteller’s knack for humor, enviable phrases, and has some controversy. Without spices, there is no story!
From DNA to RNA to cellular behavior, from experiments in other organisms to experiments in proteins, to mice and worms, to technology billionaires, to fashionable diets and their effects, we all go through them and then do some more.
If you think there is a magical answer at the end, this book is not for you. You’ll be better convinced of the community of snake oil salespeople, including social media influencers with potions, lotions, and pills. But, seriously, we also learn that we are very close, very close to understanding aging conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, and we are more effectively stuck if we don’t conquer.
Ramakrishnan takes us through several streams of thought, some interconnected and some independent, which seems to bring us closer to the answer. Not all living things act in the exact same way and do not respond to the same stimulus. Complex, and sometimes incomprehensible, you have to be admired by tenacious scientists who engage in hard and hard ways to find answers to longevity and health. But, it is not the rich old man who wants to live forever and the admirers around him.
For me, one of the most precious boundaries about mortality comes from Tolkien, where people are gifted deaths. It seems wiser to live a better life than to live forever. but Why do we die Give us hope for a longer and healthier future.
Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Pursuit of Eternal Life
Venki Ramakrishnan
Harchett
pp. 310; 699 rupees
