Longevity Fun Facts

Question 1

What is the oldest known currently living tree?

Answer 1

A 5,067-year-old member of the species Pinus longaeva, commonly referred to as the Great Basin bristlecone pine, intermountain bristlecone pine, or western bristlecone pine), - the long-living species of bristlecone pine tree found in the higher mountains of California, Nevada, and Utah - In 1987, the bristlecone pine was designated one of Nevada’s state trees. The Methuselah: 4,800-year-old bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, is the second oldest currently living organism known.

Question 2

What is the the oldest living organisms ever recorded?

Answer 2

Possibly 250-million year-old bacteria, Bacillus permians, were revived from stasis after being found in sodium chloride crystals in a cavern in New Mexico. Russell Vreeland, and colleagues from West Chester University in Pennsylvania, reported on October 18, 2000 that they had revived the halobacteria after bathing them with a nutrient solution. If they had survived for 250 million years, they would be the oldest living organisms ever recorded. However, their findings date the crystal surrounding the bacteria, and DNA analysis suggests the bacteria themselves are likely to be less ancient.

Question 3

What is considered a biological immortal organism?

Answer 3

Certain exotic organisms do not seem to be subject to aging and can live indefinitely. Examples include Tardigrades and Hydras. That is not to say that these organisms cannot die, merely that they only die as a result of disease or injury rather than age-related deterioration (and that they are not subject to the Hayflick limit).

Question 4

What are longevity traditions?

Answer 4

Longevity traditions are traditions about long-lived people (generally supercentenarians), and practices that have been believed to confer longevity.[25][26] A comparison and contrast of “longevity in antiquity” (such as the Sumerian King List, the genealogies of Genesis, and the Persian Shahnameh) with “longevity in historical times” (common-era cases through twentieth-century news reports) is elaborated in detail in Lucian Boia’s 2004 book Forever Young: A Cultural History of Longevity from Antiquity to the Present and other sources.

Question 5

What are some longevity traditions referred to as the fountains of youth?

Answer 5

1. The Fountain of Youth reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. The New Testament, following older Jewish tradition, attributes healing to the Pool of Bethesda when the waters are “stirred” by an angel.
2. After the death of Juan Ponce de León, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés wrote in Historia General y Natural de las Indias (1535) that Ponce de León was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his aging.
3. Traditions that have been believed to confer greater human longevity also include alchemy, such as that attributed to Nicolas Flamel.
4. In the modern era, the Okinawa diet has some reputation of linkage to exceptionally high ages

Question 6

What are some of the studies, or future technologies that will accelerate the rate of life expectancy in future?

Answer 6

Michio Kaku argues that genetic engineering, nanotechnology and future breakthroughs will accelerate the rate of life expectancy increase indefinitely. Already genetic engineering has allowed the life expectancy of certain primates to be doubled, and for human skin cells in labs to divide and live indefinitely without becoming cancerous.