0 00:00:06,506 --> 00:00:07,666 It's just possible 1 00:00:07,741 --> 00:00:12,508 that this girl will have more time on earth than anyone who's ever lived. 2 00:00:17,517 --> 00:00:20,850 She might live for a thousand years. 3 00:00:24,557 --> 00:00:27,788 Immortality, a quest for more time, 4 00:00:27,861 --> 00:00:31,695 is a dream that has driven humanity for generations. 5 00:00:32,999 --> 00:00:36,093 We search for the elixir of life. 6 00:00:36,269 --> 00:00:37,930 Would I be the first one trying it? 7 00:00:38,705 --> 00:00:42,641 And we yearn for the lost time that lingers on in our memory. 8 00:00:44,477 --> 00:00:45,307 Over here. 9 00:00:45,612 --> 00:00:47,603 My god these are the old classrooms. 10 00:00:48,248 --> 00:00:49,943 I haven't been here in 50 years. 11 00:00:51,618 --> 00:00:54,587 Now, finally, in the 21st century, 12 00:00:54,788 --> 00:00:57,518 this search for more time might be over. 13 00:01:00,527 --> 00:01:03,655 Because scientists are beginning to crack the secrets 14 00:01:03,730 --> 00:01:06,597 of how time changes us day by day. 15 00:01:08,468 --> 00:01:09,958 And as we understand time, 16 00:01:10,270 --> 00:01:14,138 eventually there'll be no limit on how long we might live. 17 00:01:14,474 --> 00:01:17,375 I want to live forever. 18 00:01:44,070 --> 00:01:46,004 Like every human who's ever lived, 19 00:01:46,072 --> 00:01:47,403 I know one thing for certain: 20 00:01:48,041 --> 00:01:51,374 One day, I don't know when, my time will run out. 21 00:01:53,580 --> 00:01:55,241 No matter how well I treat my body - 22 00:01:55,648 --> 00:01:58,776 no matter how well I eat or how well I exercise, 23 00:01:58,852 --> 00:02:03,448 I know that my body will fail and one day I will die. 24 00:02:14,134 --> 00:02:15,931 Of all time's effects on us, 25 00:02:16,569 --> 00:02:20,562 the most profound is that one day it will end. 26 00:02:23,109 --> 00:02:26,442 Our time is limited, so our time is precious. 27 00:02:28,815 --> 00:02:30,016 In this programme 28 00:02:30,016 --> 00:02:32,416 I'm going to look at what that means for us, 29 00:02:32,619 --> 00:02:37,181 how the knowledge of our limited time has shaped us as humans. 30 00:02:41,027 --> 00:02:44,861 I'm a theoretical physicist and I live here in Manhattan. 31 00:02:45,398 --> 00:02:48,231 It's a place where time is always in short supply. 32 00:02:53,806 --> 00:02:55,671 I want to know if our time on earth, 33 00:02:55,942 --> 00:02:58,103 our lifespan, has to be limited. 34 00:02:59,679 --> 00:03:02,239 And if we could hold back the march of time, 35 00:03:02,682 --> 00:03:04,115 what would it mean for us? 36 00:03:06,452 --> 00:03:09,182 What would it mean to be immortal? 37 00:03:12,392 --> 00:03:16,351 We may not feel the effects of time changing us day by day - 38 00:03:16,429 --> 00:03:17,361 but we know that it does. 39 00:03:17,730 --> 00:03:21,564 And it's more than just the physical ageing of our body on the outside. 40 00:03:24,037 --> 00:03:28,303 Our sense of time itself seems to change as we get older. 41 00:03:28,775 --> 00:03:31,903 Many of us get the feeling that life is speeding up. 42 00:03:32,979 --> 00:03:34,913 So let's start with a simple question: 43 00:03:35,882 --> 00:03:37,816 Is this just something we imagine? 44 00:03:38,918 --> 00:03:42,615 Or is time really running faster for us as we get older? 45 00:03:44,257 --> 00:03:47,124 Well, the only way to find out is to do an experiment. 46 00:03:47,460 --> 00:03:50,793 So here we are in the middle of mid-town Manhattan. 47 00:03:51,064 --> 00:03:52,895 We're doing a little experiment 48 00:03:52,966 --> 00:03:55,230 that may be fun and you might be interested. 49 00:03:55,568 --> 00:03:57,866 We're trying to measure the duration of time, 50 00:03:57,937 --> 00:03:59,871 how people perceive the duration of a minute. 51 00:04:00,340 --> 00:04:03,798 But we have a theory that says that our perception of time 52 00:04:04,110 --> 00:04:07,102 either speeds up or slows down with age. 53 00:04:07,447 --> 00:04:10,211 I have a stopwatch here, I'll ask you to count for a minute 54 00:04:10,416 --> 00:04:11,747 and we'll see how close you get. 55 00:04:11,818 --> 00:04:12,443 Okay. 56 00:04:12,552 --> 00:04:15,350 Well, let's start the experiment right now. 57 00:04:15,855 --> 00:04:16,651 One minute... 58 00:04:19,993 --> 00:04:21,221 Five. 59 00:04:21,294 --> 00:04:22,022 Six. 60 00:04:22,829 --> 00:04:24,763 Eight thousand, nine thousand, ten... 61 00:04:24,831 --> 00:04:26,128 Ten. Eleven. 62 00:04:27,467 --> 00:04:29,128 One thing I liked about this experiment 63 00:04:29,202 --> 00:04:30,931 is that you can assign numbers to it. 64 00:04:31,004 --> 00:04:32,301 It's quantifiable. 65 00:04:32,739 --> 00:04:35,731 So many times when we talk about the passage of time, 66 00:04:35,808 --> 00:04:39,141 it gets very touchy-feely, it gets very subjective. 67 00:04:39,245 --> 00:04:41,611 Here's an experiment where you can actually test it. 68 00:04:42,248 --> 00:04:43,078 55. 69 00:04:43,283 --> 00:04:44,045 56. 70 00:04:44,484 --> 00:04:45,041 57. 71 00:04:45,485 --> 00:04:46,452 58 thousand. 72 00:04:46,619 --> 00:04:47,517 59. 73 00:04:47,587 --> 00:04:48,144 60. 74 00:04:48,221 --> 00:04:48,880 60. 75 00:04:48,955 --> 00:04:49,319 Go. 76 00:04:49,389 --> 00:04:49,912 One minute. 77 00:04:50,123 --> 00:04:52,216 You're under by about 12 seconds. 78 00:04:52,525 --> 00:04:53,787 Ten seconds under. 79 00:04:54,193 --> 00:04:56,423 You're under by about six seconds. 80 00:04:56,496 --> 00:04:56,985 Six seconds. 81 00:04:57,263 --> 00:05:00,426 Our young people are tending to time a minute too quickly. 82 00:05:01,234 --> 00:05:03,600 They're finishing before their minute is up. 83 00:05:04,170 --> 00:05:05,398 Nine seconds over. 84 00:05:05,672 --> 00:05:06,229 Three seconds over. 85 00:05:06,306 --> 00:05:07,102 Three seconds. 86 00:05:07,173 --> 00:05:08,606 19 seconds over. 87 00:05:08,675 --> 00:05:09,972 Over? Oh my goodness. 88 00:05:10,043 --> 00:05:10,509 By contrast, 89 00:05:10,576 --> 00:05:14,103 our older people finish counting well after a minute has passed. 90 00:05:15,882 --> 00:05:18,851 In other words, they're marking time much more slowly. 91 00:05:19,886 --> 00:05:21,911 Well, I'll spend it well. 92 00:05:23,723 --> 00:05:27,420 And this has a dramatic effect on the way we see the world. 93 00:05:29,996 --> 00:05:32,260 It turns out that the internal clock - 94 00:05:33,066 --> 00:05:34,397 that we have inside our brain 95 00:05:34,901 --> 00:05:37,597 is actually slowing down the older we get. 96 00:05:38,404 --> 00:05:40,395 And as the ticking begins to wind down, 97 00:05:41,207 --> 00:05:43,539 as the ticking of our clock begins to wind down, 98 00:05:43,943 --> 00:05:46,343 everything else seems to speed up. 99 00:05:52,518 --> 00:05:53,985 This disconcerting feeling 100 00:05:54,220 --> 00:05:57,155 that the world is beginning to run on ahead of us 101 00:05:57,223 --> 00:05:59,885 is a very direct reminder that one day, 102 00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:02,453 after about 80 years or so of living, 103 00:06:02,962 --> 00:06:04,657 we'll stop altogether. 104 00:06:06,532 --> 00:06:08,227 Our time will have run out. 105 00:06:26,919 --> 00:06:29,046 But does out time have to run out? 106 00:06:30,790 --> 00:06:33,258 Why can't we just go on forever? 107 00:06:39,699 --> 00:06:42,190 It's a question we've asked for centuries. 108 00:06:42,702 --> 00:06:47,696 After all, in nature some things seem to have an almost endless lifetime. 109 00:06:51,744 --> 00:06:54,235 I'm looking for the oldest inhabitant on earth, 110 00:06:54,781 --> 00:06:57,978 here on the edge of the Sierra Nevada in California. 111 00:07:02,021 --> 00:07:04,319 It's one of these bristleone pine trees. 112 00:07:04,657 --> 00:07:08,058 So ancient that it has a name - Methuselah. 113 00:07:08,728 --> 00:07:11,526 It's nearly five thousand years old. 114 00:07:15,268 --> 00:07:17,634 The Methusaleh tree is four thousand, 115 00:07:17,703 --> 00:07:20,365 seven hundred and eighty-one years of age. 116 00:07:21,941 --> 00:07:23,772 It's staggering to believe 117 00:07:23,943 --> 00:07:26,571 that this tree could be older than the pyramids. 118 00:07:27,580 --> 00:07:29,878 Older than recorded history itself. 119 00:07:31,451 --> 00:07:32,782 It's magnificent. 120 00:07:36,289 --> 00:07:38,849 Amazingly, it's still fertile. 121 00:07:39,559 --> 00:07:43,120 Bury this pine cone and you will have a baby bristlecone pine. 122 00:07:43,663 --> 00:07:47,099 But its parent is almost five thousand years old. 123 00:07:51,003 --> 00:07:52,630 That's a vast amount of time. 124 00:07:54,974 --> 00:07:55,963 So the question is: 125 00:07:56,375 --> 00:07:58,935 What's stopping us from living that long? 126 00:08:01,547 --> 00:08:05,108 What is it that determines how much time we have on earth? 127 00:08:13,192 --> 00:08:17,822 To find an answer, meet Cyril, the boy racer of the animal world. 128 00:08:21,133 --> 00:08:22,862 Cyril is a brown mouse. 129 00:08:25,872 --> 00:08:28,807 His fast lifestyle is driven by his biology. 130 00:08:30,743 --> 00:08:33,405 His heart pulses at 650 beats per minute. 131 00:08:33,713 --> 00:08:36,113 He breathes 160 times a minute. 132 00:08:37,149 --> 00:08:40,380 His metabolic rate is so high that he burns himself out. 133 00:08:41,687 --> 00:08:45,953 This frenetic lifestyle of his is all over within two years. 134 00:08:46,192 --> 00:08:48,319 He's one of the shortest-living of all mammals. 135 00:08:51,564 --> 00:08:54,465 In that time he has to live a whole life. 136 00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:58,759 He's a father at three months, a grandparent at six months. 137 00:09:00,339 --> 00:09:03,866 It's as if he was designed to do everything in fast forward, 138 00:09:04,243 --> 00:09:06,768 as if his time is biologically predetermined. 139 00:09:08,748 --> 00:09:11,376 Cyril truly lives fast and dies young. 140 00:09:11,817 --> 00:09:13,045 He's just 12 months old. 141 00:09:13,886 --> 00:09:15,319 Cute little critter, isn't he? 142 00:09:15,688 --> 00:09:18,521 However, within a year he'll probably be dead. 143 00:09:19,091 --> 00:09:22,925 In other words, it does seem as if he is programmed to die. 144 00:09:29,368 --> 00:09:32,166 Across the animal kingdom, the story is the same. 145 00:09:32,605 --> 00:09:35,506 Each species has a pretty much fixed lifespan. 146 00:09:39,412 --> 00:09:40,276 From mayflies, 147 00:09:40,346 --> 00:09:43,679 who have just one day to enjoy the spring sunshine, 148 00:09:44,050 --> 00:09:46,780 to have sex, just once, and die 149 00:09:47,887 --> 00:09:50,412 to elephants who often have 70 years. 150 00:09:52,124 --> 00:09:54,991 Life and death seems to follow a pattern. 151 00:09:56,162 --> 00:09:57,720 So time, it would appear, 152 00:09:57,797 --> 00:10:00,595 is a precious odity that is strictly limited 153 00:10:02,401 --> 00:10:03,959 by biology. 154 00:10:06,939 --> 00:10:09,635 And for humans too, it's no different. 155 00:10:11,444 --> 00:10:15,073 Horace Higgins feels literally in his bones 156 00:10:15,214 --> 00:10:16,738 that his time is running out. 157 00:10:18,484 --> 00:10:21,851 It's tough, because er, you get aches and pains 158 00:10:21,921 --> 00:10:26,381 and my knees are presently er, getting a little arthritic and it hurts 159 00:10:26,692 --> 00:10:27,454 when I run. 160 00:10:28,361 --> 00:10:33,025 And erm, it's a - to tell you the truth, it's quite a drag. 161 00:10:35,368 --> 00:10:36,767 Horace is 82, 162 00:10:37,269 --> 00:10:38,395 but he has a secret 163 00:10:38,471 --> 00:10:42,100 that suggests his lifespan could be much longer than you might expect. 164 00:10:44,310 --> 00:10:47,302 If you really want to know what it feels like to be getting older, 165 00:10:47,380 --> 00:10:48,540 you should talk to my mum. 166 00:10:50,983 --> 00:10:53,042 Mum, can you hear me okay? 167 00:10:53,119 --> 00:10:53,608 Yes. 168 00:10:53,686 --> 00:10:57,918 I have some pictures here from 1894. 169 00:10:58,758 --> 00:11:02,956 A picture of you, your brother Harry and your sister Fern, 170 00:11:03,396 --> 00:11:06,763 and it shows you sitting in the chair and you're looking quite sad. 171 00:11:06,832 --> 00:11:10,131 - Do you remember that picture? - Yes, I remember the picture. 172 00:11:10,202 --> 00:11:10,827 Okay. 173 00:11:10,903 --> 00:11:14,134 My mother said the photographer frightened me. 174 00:11:16,509 --> 00:11:20,309 Marion Higgins was born in 1893, 175 00:11:20,379 --> 00:11:24,577 which means she's now an incredible 112 years old 176 00:11:25,718 --> 00:11:28,983 one of the oldest people in the world today, 177 00:11:29,989 --> 00:11:31,923 with amazing memories. 178 00:11:32,725 --> 00:11:37,753 I can remember that I was standing on the business street in Boise, Idaho. 179 00:11:38,731 --> 00:11:41,791 I saw a horseless carriage. 180 00:11:42,868 --> 00:11:46,599 It was just a buggy going by, but there was no horse. 181 00:11:49,008 --> 00:11:50,999 I thought that was kind of peculiar. 182 00:11:53,679 --> 00:11:58,707 At 112, Marion has outlived many of her friends and family. 183 00:12:02,521 --> 00:12:05,319 My husband died in 1949. 184 00:12:06,158 --> 00:12:09,594 He was 60 years old. 185 00:12:11,130 --> 00:12:13,655 We were married 31 years. 186 00:12:16,702 --> 00:12:19,694 I have never wanted another man. 187 00:12:23,075 --> 00:12:26,636 So what then is the secret to Marion's long life? 188 00:12:29,715 --> 00:12:32,309 Well, just keep on living, that's all. 189 00:12:32,785 --> 00:12:33,979 That's all I can tell you. 190 00:12:34,687 --> 00:12:35,619 Don't die. 191 00:12:40,926 --> 00:12:43,861 Today many more people are living to old age. 192 00:12:44,263 --> 00:12:45,321 But in the whole world, 193 00:12:45,431 --> 00:12:49,731 just a bare handful rival Marion's 112 years. 194 00:12:52,138 --> 00:12:54,231 The oldest ever was a Frenchwoman, 195 00:12:54,540 --> 00:12:57,805 Madame Jeanne Calment who died in 1997 196 00:12:59,145 --> 00:13:02,239 at the incredible age of 122. 197 00:13:06,719 --> 00:13:08,311 But that seems to be it. 198 00:13:09,088 --> 00:13:11,955 Biologically our allotted time runs out. 199 00:13:15,127 --> 00:13:17,288 Every year there are more Marion Higgins, 200 00:13:18,063 --> 00:13:21,965 but they are not crossing what seems to be an ultimate boundary. 201 00:13:23,803 --> 00:13:28,069 We seem to be bumping up against a natural limit of the human lifespan. 202 00:13:34,313 --> 00:13:37,942 We share this fixed lifetime with all living things. 203 00:13:40,186 --> 00:13:43,246 But there's one thing that makes us unique. 204 00:13:44,557 --> 00:13:47,025 Unlike all other creatures on this planet, 205 00:13:47,193 --> 00:13:50,924 we are the only ones who know that our time is limited. 206 00:13:54,166 --> 00:13:56,532 And this knowledge shapes us as humans. 207 00:13:56,936 --> 00:14:00,599 This feeling for the poignancy and transience of our lives 208 00:14:00,673 --> 00:14:04,973 has been at the root of so much of what we value in human culture. 209 00:14:06,579 --> 00:14:09,776 It's ever-present in our art, literature and music, 210 00:14:10,916 --> 00:14:14,545 and it surrounds us in our monuments, histories and religions. 211 00:14:15,588 --> 00:14:17,954 It makes us what we are. 212 00:14:21,927 --> 00:14:23,827 Knowing that our time is limited 213 00:14:23,896 --> 00:14:24,885 helps to shape the way 214 00:14:24,964 --> 00:14:27,626 we view ourselves and see the rest of the world 215 00:14:27,700 --> 00:14:31,261 in ways that science is just beginning to discover. 216 00:14:36,208 --> 00:14:37,869 Have a look at these pictures. 217 00:14:38,944 --> 00:14:42,038 Which do you remember and which do you forget? 218 00:14:46,719 --> 00:14:48,550 Psychologist Laura Carstenson 219 00:14:48,854 --> 00:14:51,220 uses the pictures as part of an experiment 220 00:14:51,457 --> 00:14:55,587 to study the emotional impact of knowing our time is limited. 221 00:14:56,862 --> 00:14:58,489 Humans are, to the best of our knowledge, 222 00:14:58,564 --> 00:15:01,192 the only species aware of our mortality. 223 00:15:02,568 --> 00:15:05,196 Notjust aware that we're dying when we're dying, 224 00:15:05,271 --> 00:15:08,399 but that at any point in time throughout most of life 225 00:15:08,807 --> 00:15:13,210 we have some sense of how much time we have left. 226 00:15:14,113 --> 00:15:15,910 So the first thing I'm going to have you do 227 00:15:17,516 --> 00:15:19,609 is just look at a slide of pictures. 228 00:15:20,486 --> 00:15:23,250 Some of the images have negative emotional value, 229 00:15:23,622 --> 00:15:25,055 and some are positive. 230 00:15:28,894 --> 00:15:30,122 In her experiments, 231 00:15:30,296 --> 00:15:34,926 Laura's team found that young people remember a wide range of pictures. 232 00:15:35,501 --> 00:15:36,866 A skydiver. 233 00:15:38,237 --> 00:15:39,966 And a woman with a baby. 234 00:15:40,105 --> 00:15:41,197 Snakes. 235 00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:43,403 A man with a bloodied face. 236 00:15:45,444 --> 00:15:49,312 But older people consistently forget one set of images. 237 00:15:50,916 --> 00:15:52,975 Baby being held in the arms of his mother. 238 00:15:53,385 --> 00:15:54,374 Mushrooms. 239 00:15:54,853 --> 00:15:55,877 A good glass of brew. 240 00:15:57,356 --> 00:15:58,789 Perhaps surprisingly, 241 00:15:58,857 --> 00:16:01,018 it's the negative pictures they forget. 242 00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:04,593 That's about it. I can't recall any more. 243 00:16:04,830 --> 00:16:05,524 Okay. 244 00:16:05,831 --> 00:16:09,323 With age, they begin to take account 245 00:16:09,401 --> 00:16:11,961 of how much time they have left in life, and in doing 246 00:16:12,037 --> 00:16:14,699 so tend to see what's most important 247 00:16:14,773 --> 00:16:16,900 and what's not important any more 248 00:16:16,976 --> 00:16:18,466 and to let these other things go. 249 00:16:21,013 --> 00:16:22,037 So it turns out 250 00:16:22,181 --> 00:16:26,515 that as we age and realise that we have, say, just five years left, 251 00:16:26,986 --> 00:16:30,547 this fundamentally changes how we see the world around us. 252 00:16:31,924 --> 00:16:33,255 Well, I think actually that older people 253 00:16:33,325 --> 00:16:35,885 are happy knowing that they only have five years left. 254 00:16:36,028 --> 00:16:38,622 It is that that - the - the five years left 255 00:16:38,697 --> 00:16:41,131 is what's telling them it's all right to let your guard down. 256 00:16:42,501 --> 00:16:45,061 And so being able to stop 257 00:16:45,137 --> 00:16:48,595 and really experience the day and to live in the moment is something 258 00:16:48,674 --> 00:16:51,541 that may be one of the secret rewards of ageing. 259 00:16:56,015 --> 00:16:57,642 In ways we scarcely notice, 260 00:16:57,950 --> 00:17:00,145 this awareness of time passing 261 00:17:00,219 --> 00:17:02,813 is written deep in every aspect of our culture. 262 00:17:04,723 --> 00:17:06,918 It shapes notjust how we see the world, 263 00:17:07,292 --> 00:17:09,283 but how we see ourselves. 264 00:17:14,299 --> 00:17:16,028 Art historian Tarnya Cooper 265 00:17:16,235 --> 00:17:17,725 is convinced that portraits 266 00:17:17,903 --> 00:17:21,134 have always been crucial to the way we think about time. 267 00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:32,681 Portraiture is something which can capture a person in time, 268 00:17:32,751 --> 00:17:34,150 a particular moment in time. 269 00:17:37,389 --> 00:17:41,985 You have this sense of an individual at this particular moment. 270 00:17:42,361 --> 00:17:43,419 And what's interesting about that 271 00:17:43,495 --> 00:17:45,019 is that when that goes up on the wall 272 00:17:45,097 --> 00:17:46,792 and that's their portrait in their house, 273 00:17:46,932 --> 00:17:48,832 is in years to come, in ten years, 274 00:17:48,934 --> 00:17:51,198 in twenty years, in thirty years 275 00:17:51,270 --> 00:17:53,602 you have a sense of - of your own mortality. 276 00:17:54,606 --> 00:17:57,905 And of course, implicit in that is an awareness of our own death, 277 00:17:58,043 --> 00:18:01,376 awareness that we no longer always look the way that we did. 278 00:18:02,347 --> 00:18:04,338 We won't always be youthful. 279 00:18:09,421 --> 00:18:10,911 During the 17th century, 280 00:18:11,190 --> 00:18:14,284 mortality was placed at the centre of high art, 281 00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:16,994 with paintings known as 'memento mori'. 282 00:18:18,797 --> 00:18:20,560 A memento mori picture is anything 283 00:18:20,632 --> 00:18:23,032 really that reminds us of passing time, 284 00:18:23,102 --> 00:18:25,297 that reminds us of our own transience, 285 00:18:25,704 --> 00:18:28,070 of ultimately death and mortality. 286 00:18:30,109 --> 00:18:32,543 It might include anything, all sort of different emblems, 287 00:18:32,611 --> 00:18:35,546 from a skull perhaps in a portrait or an hourglass, 288 00:18:35,781 --> 00:18:37,009 or a ticking watch. 289 00:18:37,549 --> 00:18:40,780 Or it might include, indeed rotting fruit, 290 00:18:40,853 --> 00:18:43,344 or perfect fruit with a fly at the edge, 291 00:18:43,422 --> 00:18:44,787 thatjust be rotting, 292 00:18:45,124 --> 00:18:47,388 and ultimately will become, 293 00:18:47,593 --> 00:18:50,528 as we will, flesh will rot and go into the ground. 294 00:18:51,430 --> 00:18:52,727 Okay, finished. 295 00:18:58,203 --> 00:18:59,795 In the 16th and 17th centuries, 296 00:18:59,938 --> 00:19:01,735 people wanted to have something on the wall 297 00:19:01,907 --> 00:19:04,501 thatjust kept their own pride in check, 298 00:19:04,576 --> 00:19:07,340 that kept their humility saying 299 00:19:07,479 --> 00:19:08,776 I'm still a humble person 300 00:19:08,981 --> 00:19:11,575 whose awareness of their own mortality is there. 301 00:19:23,495 --> 00:19:24,689 Throughout history, 302 00:19:25,130 --> 00:19:27,360 the awareness that our time is limited, 303 00:19:27,866 --> 00:19:29,925 that our life will eventually end, 304 00:19:30,169 --> 00:19:32,933 has driven humans to search for a way out. 305 00:19:35,407 --> 00:19:38,467 For centuries, religions have provided one. 306 00:19:42,214 --> 00:19:43,681 At the heart of religion, 307 00:19:44,049 --> 00:19:46,677 practically all the world's religions, 308 00:19:47,152 --> 00:19:49,985 there is the offer of eternal life, 309 00:19:50,422 --> 00:19:52,447 time without end. 310 00:19:55,627 --> 00:19:57,891 This is Wells Cathedral in Somerset. 311 00:19:58,463 --> 00:20:00,454 For the past 800 years, 312 00:20:00,766 --> 00:20:01,562 every Christian 313 00:20:01,633 --> 00:20:02,930 who's walked in here 314 00:20:03,001 --> 00:20:07,097 has been reminded that their soul is immortal. 315 00:20:11,276 --> 00:20:14,211 So I imagine that the promise of eternal life 316 00:20:14,580 --> 00:20:17,481 was a powerful incentive for the people who worshipped here. 317 00:20:20,485 --> 00:20:23,943 From their bible, they knew that god controlled time. 318 00:20:24,623 --> 00:20:27,854 They read that Adam had reached over 900 years of age, 319 00:20:28,126 --> 00:20:33,428 and Methuselah, the oldest, he lived to be 969 years. 320 00:20:35,601 --> 00:20:38,866 So they knew god had the power over earthly time. 321 00:20:41,940 --> 00:20:46,604 And they believed that god could grant them an infinite life extension. 322 00:20:49,314 --> 00:20:52,283 It was essential that graveyards be placed close by, 323 00:20:52,551 --> 00:20:56,487 so that the living and the dead were almost side by side. 324 00:20:56,955 --> 00:20:58,149 To the medieval mind, 325 00:20:58,457 --> 00:21:01,119 death was viewed as a - as a phase, 326 00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:04,454 as nothing but a natural continuation of life. 327 00:21:11,303 --> 00:21:12,736 The problem today, though, 328 00:21:12,904 --> 00:21:15,202 is that many of us are more sceptical. 329 00:21:15,774 --> 00:21:18,470 To get everlasting life in heaven 330 00:21:18,644 --> 00:21:21,670 you have to trust that heaven actually exists. 331 00:21:26,852 --> 00:21:28,217 Speaking as a scientist 332 00:21:28,453 --> 00:21:30,421 I think that there is a problem 333 00:21:30,489 --> 00:21:34,118 with regards to the after life and religious immortality. 334 00:21:34,459 --> 00:21:37,451 And that is there's no proof that it exists. 335 00:21:37,896 --> 00:21:40,888 Remarkable claims require remarkable proof. 336 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:43,459 But maybe you don't need proof. 337 00:21:43,969 --> 00:21:45,231 Well, I do. 338 00:21:46,838 --> 00:21:48,999 I'm with Woody Allen when he said, 339 00:21:49,708 --> 00:21:54,236 'I don't want to live on in my work, I want to live on in my apartment.' 340 00:22:03,689 --> 00:22:06,783 We've spent thousands of years in our quest for more time, 341 00:22:07,225 --> 00:22:08,817 searching for the philosopher's stone, 342 00:22:09,194 --> 00:22:11,560 and dreaming of immortality. 343 00:22:16,435 --> 00:22:18,562 And yet, biologically, 344 00:22:18,904 --> 00:22:21,964 culturally and even psychologically, 345 00:22:22,207 --> 00:22:24,641 we are prepared for death. 346 00:22:29,381 --> 00:22:31,815 But do we have to take it as inevitable? 347 00:22:32,984 --> 00:22:36,351 Are all animals, including us, programmed to die? 348 00:22:36,788 --> 00:22:37,982 Because if that's so, 349 00:22:38,056 --> 00:22:39,614 it means that all our cravings, 350 00:22:39,691 --> 00:22:43,491 all our yearnings for magic potions and the fountain of youth, 351 00:22:43,628 --> 00:22:45,459 they're all doomed to failure. 352 00:22:47,299 --> 00:22:50,860 But there might just be a glimmer of hope, 353 00:22:51,603 --> 00:22:53,571 because scientists are beginning to discover 354 00:22:53,638 --> 00:22:59,270 something that might finally offer a very real prospect of unlimited time. 355 00:23:13,392 --> 00:23:18,261 Right from the start, the creation of a new life is amazing. 356 00:23:29,107 --> 00:23:30,506 Our cells divide 357 00:23:30,575 --> 00:23:33,510 and grow into a body that will mature and develop 358 00:23:33,879 --> 00:23:35,972 and ultimately reproduce. 359 00:23:39,217 --> 00:23:42,778 It's clear that we are programmed to live. 360 00:23:45,624 --> 00:23:49,651 But we are now discovering that we might not be programmed to die. 361 00:23:53,965 --> 00:23:56,934 Paul Nurse is a Nobel Prize winning biologist 362 00:23:57,002 --> 00:24:00,870 who has spent a career studying the deepest mechanisms of life. 363 00:24:02,174 --> 00:24:04,540 Every living organism has a certain lifespan. 364 00:24:05,043 --> 00:24:08,843 I mean, whether it's two years for a mouse or longer for other mammals. 365 00:24:09,114 --> 00:24:12,345 So it seems as if there is a - a - a programme 366 00:24:12,417 --> 00:24:14,385 which erm, specifies how long we're going to live. 367 00:24:14,453 --> 00:24:16,944 That - that's what most people used to think. 368 00:24:19,124 --> 00:24:22,150 But that view has recently been turned on its head. 369 00:24:23,929 --> 00:24:27,387 Paul Nurse works on yeast, a tiny micro-organism. 370 00:24:28,033 --> 00:24:31,992 It's just a single cell, but it has a remarkable property. 371 00:24:33,538 --> 00:24:35,096 Yeast cells are immortal. 372 00:24:35,173 --> 00:24:36,037 They keep going. 373 00:24:36,308 --> 00:24:38,503 They'll keep growing and dividing 374 00:24:38,577 --> 00:24:41,045 erm, for as long as they have something to feed on. 375 00:24:42,380 --> 00:24:44,075 Big deal, you might say. 376 00:24:44,349 --> 00:24:46,749 A colony of yeast cells lives forever? 377 00:24:47,519 --> 00:24:48,349 So what? 378 00:24:49,187 --> 00:24:53,021 But in 1985, Paul Nurse had a startling idea. 379 00:24:55,260 --> 00:24:58,957 Perhaps the same mechanism could exist in humans. 380 00:25:01,032 --> 00:25:03,125 Going from yeast to humans is a huge leap. 381 00:25:03,935 --> 00:25:08,872 We last shared a on ancestor erm, 1,500 million years ago. 382 00:25:09,074 --> 00:25:12,339 So this is a gigantic leap in evolutionary time. 383 00:25:16,014 --> 00:25:20,417 His team transplantedhuman genes into a damaged yeast cell. 384 00:25:21,386 --> 00:25:22,580 And incredibly, 385 00:25:22,787 --> 00:25:28,282 the yeast cells could use the human genes to carry on living indefinitely. 386 00:25:31,730 --> 00:25:33,129 In one experiment 387 00:25:33,198 --> 00:25:35,996 we'd shown yeasts and humans worked the same way. 388 00:25:36,268 --> 00:25:40,398 1.5 billion years of evolution, and they still work the same way. 389 00:25:40,705 --> 00:25:42,673 So that now begins to look as if 390 00:25:42,741 --> 00:25:45,175 the programme isn't quite so inevitable. 391 00:25:47,279 --> 00:25:51,147 It turns out that a programme for death just isn't there. 392 00:25:51,583 --> 00:25:54,950 The only plan in our genes is for life. 393 00:26:00,525 --> 00:26:04,427 What's just as remarkable is that the same is true for ageing. 394 00:26:06,364 --> 00:26:08,389 There are genes that build us to maturity, 395 00:26:08,767 --> 00:26:11,463 but no genes that directly age us. 396 00:26:13,972 --> 00:26:16,805 There's no clock that charts our decline. 397 00:26:23,782 --> 00:26:25,579 But you know, in reality 398 00:26:25,984 --> 00:26:29,249 I know that every part of me is getting older. 399 00:26:29,654 --> 00:26:34,455 My hair, my skin, my muscles, every part of me is ageing. 400 00:26:34,893 --> 00:26:35,655 But why? 401 00:26:36,194 --> 00:26:38,287 I mean, what's the problem? 402 00:26:42,100 --> 00:26:45,627 It's this that holds the key to extending our lifetime. 403 00:26:49,174 --> 00:26:51,233 Because if ageing isn't programmed in, 404 00:26:51,509 --> 00:26:54,945 perhaps it could be reversed, or even avoided altogether. 405 00:26:58,450 --> 00:27:02,113 All we need is to understand exactly why we age. 406 00:27:07,592 --> 00:27:09,219 You know, my hair used to be black. 407 00:27:10,362 --> 00:27:13,490 I have tiny cells that manufactured the black pigment, 408 00:27:14,032 --> 00:27:17,695 but as the years went by these cells simply stopped making it. 409 00:27:19,337 --> 00:27:20,964 So my hair turned white. 410 00:27:27,312 --> 00:27:31,772 Over time the collagen framework that supports my skin begins to deform. 411 00:27:34,953 --> 00:27:38,150 As the cells beneath it start making the wrong proteins. 412 00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,394 So my skin collapses into wrinkles. 413 00:27:46,865 --> 00:27:49,857 What's happening is that my cells are accumulating damage 414 00:27:50,068 --> 00:27:52,036 which stops them from working properly. 415 00:27:53,038 --> 00:27:55,336 And it's happening right through my body. 416 00:27:57,108 --> 00:27:59,804 We do have extraordinary repair mechanisms. 417 00:28:01,112 --> 00:28:05,674 But over time there's simply too much cellular damage to be repaired. 418 00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:09,452 Take our bones. 419 00:28:10,588 --> 00:28:14,820 The interior honeycomb that gives them strength suffers wear and tear. 420 00:28:16,795 --> 00:28:18,558 In our youth, this gets repaired, 421 00:28:18,997 --> 00:28:22,194 but as we get older the repair mechanism is overwhelmed 422 00:28:22,267 --> 00:28:24,827 and our bones become thin and brittle. 423 00:28:28,339 --> 00:28:30,136 It turns out that we are ageing 424 00:28:30,208 --> 00:28:33,473 just because our cells are too damaged to work properly. 425 00:28:34,012 --> 00:28:36,947 It's not programmed in, itjust happens. 426 00:28:42,020 --> 00:28:45,319 Ageing is not even directly related to how old we are. 427 00:28:45,690 --> 00:28:49,786 If that was so, we would all age at exactly the same rate. 428 00:28:54,165 --> 00:28:55,154 So at this clinic, 429 00:28:55,366 --> 00:28:59,268 they're going to run some tests to see how time-worn my body is. 430 00:29:00,438 --> 00:29:02,998 They're going to calculate my biological age. 431 00:29:04,743 --> 00:29:05,903 Here's your urine sample. 432 00:29:05,977 --> 00:29:06,807 Okay. 433 00:29:07,445 --> 00:29:08,537 Just put it there. 434 00:29:11,382 --> 00:29:15,443 Today you're going to have your biological age system assessment, 435 00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,387 and that means that we will be checking your true age. 436 00:29:18,590 --> 00:29:21,252 Now, your true age is actually your body's age. 437 00:29:21,493 --> 00:29:25,930 Here at HB health, we do a biological age testing called Inner Age, 438 00:29:25,997 --> 00:29:28,227 that will comprise your urine sample, 439 00:29:28,466 --> 00:29:32,027 erm, some physical testing and some blood testing. 440 00:29:32,237 --> 00:29:32,896 Okay. 441 00:29:32,971 --> 00:29:34,097 So I'm a guinea pig, in other words, right? 442 00:29:34,172 --> 00:29:35,400 - Yes. - Okay. 443 00:29:44,382 --> 00:29:47,408 Gee, you know, I kind of wonder what age I'll turn out to be. 444 00:29:47,986 --> 00:29:50,978 I think I'm pretty much at the age where I really am. 445 00:29:53,491 --> 00:29:54,583 I'm 58. 446 00:29:55,226 --> 00:29:58,889 I'll find out my biological age when the results come through. 447 00:30:00,565 --> 00:30:01,793 You work out, don't you? 448 00:30:15,513 --> 00:30:17,845 So this is it, the moment of truth. 449 00:30:18,583 --> 00:30:22,542 This is when I get to find out how old I am on the inside. 450 00:30:23,421 --> 00:30:25,480 Here we have the different parts of the body, 451 00:30:25,557 --> 00:30:28,424 and the biological age listed. 452 00:30:31,429 --> 00:30:33,454 My actual age is 58, 453 00:30:33,798 --> 00:30:36,733 and they think I'm 50, which is good. 454 00:30:36,801 --> 00:30:37,893 Which is great. 455 00:30:39,070 --> 00:30:40,697 But what is really strange 456 00:30:40,772 --> 00:30:45,038 is that they think different parts of my body have wildly different ages. 457 00:30:47,345 --> 00:30:50,212 In terms of hand grip, in terms of strength - 458 00:30:50,548 --> 00:30:51,742 well it says here, 459 00:30:51,816 --> 00:30:54,717 very embarrassingly enough, 72 years of age. 460 00:30:55,653 --> 00:30:56,847 Skin elasticity, 461 00:30:56,955 --> 00:30:59,219 ah yes, now we're talking about beauty 462 00:30:59,591 --> 00:31:00,853 25 years of age. 463 00:31:02,026 --> 00:31:03,891 Well, I think this is pretty bizarre. 464 00:31:04,229 --> 00:31:10,190 Er, my left had and my right hand are off by 30 years in terms of age. 465 00:31:10,602 --> 00:31:12,194 So how can that be? 466 00:31:17,141 --> 00:31:19,735 Not only is there no programme for ageing, 467 00:31:20,178 --> 00:31:23,739 but it doesn't even happen in a regular way over time. 468 00:31:30,255 --> 00:31:31,813 What's become obvious to me 469 00:31:32,357 --> 00:31:35,155 is that if you really want to get a handle on the ageing process 470 00:31:35,460 --> 00:31:38,156 we have to get down inside of us, 471 00:31:38,730 --> 00:31:40,357 down to the microscopic level. 472 00:31:46,104 --> 00:31:50,131 And there's a clue deep within a seemingly unlikely source, 473 00:31:51,376 --> 00:31:52,866 because scientists have, 474 00:31:52,944 --> 00:31:53,968 until recently, 475 00:31:54,045 --> 00:31:58,812 been mystified about how one class of animals manages to live so long. 476 00:32:01,085 --> 00:32:01,915 The birds. 477 00:32:05,056 --> 00:32:09,584 These are - are black headed caiques, and they're very mischievous. 478 00:32:10,561 --> 00:32:13,826 As you can see, given time, they will let themselves out. 479 00:32:14,666 --> 00:32:15,530 Oh, look at that. 480 00:32:15,667 --> 00:32:16,929 For many animals, 481 00:32:17,001 --> 00:32:20,129 if you are small you live fast and die young, 482 00:32:20,805 --> 00:32:21,897 but not birds. 483 00:32:22,573 --> 00:32:25,838 For their size, they can live a heck of a long time. 484 00:32:26,144 --> 00:32:26,906 And how old are they? 485 00:32:26,978 --> 00:32:28,411 These are three years old. 486 00:32:30,114 --> 00:32:33,914 They live usually between sort of 28 and 30 years. 487 00:32:36,621 --> 00:32:41,388 That's ten times longer than a mouse, even though it's about the same size. 488 00:32:42,193 --> 00:32:43,057 Amazing. 489 00:32:47,565 --> 00:32:52,195 But the granddaddy of this aviary is Louis, an African grey. 490 00:32:52,904 --> 00:32:54,531 He's 71 years of age. 491 00:32:55,006 --> 00:32:58,100 A bit crotchety now and then, but still going strong. 492 00:32:58,643 --> 00:33:00,611 He's outlived three owners. 493 00:33:03,948 --> 00:33:05,279 And the latest theory 494 00:33:05,350 --> 00:33:08,683 about what's keeping him alive is that like all birds 495 00:33:08,953 --> 00:33:12,719 his cells have one component that is incredibly efficient. 496 00:33:19,797 --> 00:33:21,662 They are the mitochondria. 497 00:33:22,266 --> 00:33:23,665 All animal cell have them. 498 00:33:24,102 --> 00:33:28,664 Miniature power stations that pump out energy night and day. 499 00:33:30,975 --> 00:33:32,909 That energy is vital to life, 500 00:33:33,344 --> 00:33:37,440 but unfortunately dangerous particles leak out of the mitochondria. 501 00:33:37,849 --> 00:33:40,215 These are the so-called free radicals 502 00:33:40,284 --> 00:33:43,048 that many anti-ageing diets talk about. 503 00:33:44,589 --> 00:33:47,319 And it's these that damage the cells. 504 00:33:48,326 --> 00:33:50,521 They crash into vital DNA, 505 00:33:50,762 --> 00:33:53,856 corrupting the instructions that tell the cells how to operate: 506 00:33:55,133 --> 00:33:59,365 The very information the cell needs to continue working properly. 507 00:34:08,379 --> 00:34:09,641 And recent research 508 00:34:09,714 --> 00:34:15,380 suggests that birds leak at least ten times fewer free radicals than mice. 509 00:34:16,988 --> 00:34:19,582 So they age about ten times slower. 510 00:34:21,526 --> 00:34:23,323 So what about us? 511 00:34:23,694 --> 00:34:25,059 On the one hand, we too 512 00:34:25,129 --> 00:34:28,428 generate free radicals that create genetic damage, 513 00:34:28,499 --> 00:34:31,263 but we have a fantastic defence mechanism, 514 00:34:31,469 --> 00:34:35,030 much better than that of the house, even better than the birds. 515 00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,837 But the trouble is, even that's not enough. 516 00:34:39,343 --> 00:34:42,244 Not all the free radicals are soaked up, 517 00:34:42,313 --> 00:34:44,247 not all the rubbish is cleared away, 518 00:34:44,315 --> 00:34:46,875 not all the damaged genes are repaired. 519 00:34:47,218 --> 00:34:48,742 So we age. 520 00:34:49,554 --> 00:34:51,078 It's as simple as that. 521 00:34:58,162 --> 00:35:02,098 So finally we understand exactly why we age. 522 00:35:05,203 --> 00:35:07,330 Even though we're not programmed to age, 523 00:35:07,538 --> 00:35:10,666 it seems that time will always get us in the end. 524 00:35:13,911 --> 00:35:16,004 At least that's what we always thought. 525 00:35:16,914 --> 00:35:18,176 Until now. 526 00:35:26,057 --> 00:35:27,046 The thing that would give us 527 00:35:27,125 --> 00:35:29,958 some prospect of escaping the prison of time 528 00:35:30,428 --> 00:35:33,192 would be an animal that isn't ruled by the clock. 529 00:35:36,267 --> 00:35:39,395 And marine biologists off the coast of California 530 00:35:39,470 --> 00:35:41,495 think they may have found one. 531 00:35:43,174 --> 00:35:46,666 The animal that we're looking for lives on the sea bottom. 532 00:35:47,411 --> 00:35:48,969 They move with feet. 533 00:35:49,514 --> 00:35:51,141 They also have spines. 534 00:35:58,923 --> 00:36:01,687 Dr Tom Ebert has spent his whole career 535 00:36:01,759 --> 00:36:04,751 studying the lifespan of sea urchins. 536 00:36:07,231 --> 00:36:10,894 Initially he thought they lived maybe six or seven years. 537 00:36:12,270 --> 00:36:14,534 What finally turned this upside down 538 00:36:14,605 --> 00:36:18,905 was the sea urchins' reaction to a cataclysmic event. 539 00:36:24,248 --> 00:36:28,275 The fallout from Pacific Ocean nuclear testing after World War Two 540 00:36:28,553 --> 00:36:32,819 left its effects in the skeletons of animals that were living at the time. 541 00:36:35,326 --> 00:36:37,794 They discovered traces of that radioactivity 542 00:36:37,862 --> 00:36:41,229 in the jaws of adult sea urchins still alive now. 543 00:36:41,832 --> 00:36:45,495 Yet that bomb went off 50 years ago. 544 00:36:46,237 --> 00:36:50,674 The animal has to be much, much older than 50 years. 545 00:36:53,244 --> 00:36:57,738 From this radioactive benchmark deposited in the 1940s, 546 00:36:57,815 --> 00:37:00,443 they can trace them all the way back to their birth. 547 00:37:01,686 --> 00:37:04,177 And that caused another shock. 548 00:37:05,556 --> 00:37:09,117 The individual that was analysed was clearly 549 00:37:09,193 --> 00:37:12,526 well over a hundred and probably closer to 150 years. 550 00:37:17,268 --> 00:37:19,634 That - that was - that was pretty amazing. 551 00:37:19,837 --> 00:37:21,168 Yeah, I was - I was surprised. 552 00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,140 I didn't think that that was going to be the case. 553 00:37:24,875 --> 00:37:27,435 Now, it's even - it's even better than that, 554 00:37:27,945 --> 00:37:34,180 because they appear to be leading a very vibrant life way into old age 555 00:37:34,352 --> 00:37:37,253 without any indication of ageing at all. 556 00:37:40,758 --> 00:37:41,383 Incredible. 557 00:37:41,826 --> 00:37:45,592 Here's an animal that appears to have cracked the ageing process. 558 00:37:46,030 --> 00:37:48,055 It lives outside time. 559 00:37:49,300 --> 00:37:52,292 At the moment, no one knows how the sea urchin does it, 560 00:37:52,603 --> 00:37:55,401 but at least we now know it's possible, 561 00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:59,003 and the key must lie in its genes. 562 00:38:06,417 --> 00:38:09,944 So it seems that the secret to holding back time 563 00:38:10,021 --> 00:38:12,819 might be closer to discovery than we thought. 564 00:38:15,259 --> 00:38:16,385 Throughout history 565 00:38:16,527 --> 00:38:18,552 we have sought the elixir of life 566 00:38:18,729 --> 00:38:22,290 in exotic elements with supposedly magical powers. 567 00:38:23,501 --> 00:38:25,025 But the very latest science 568 00:38:25,202 --> 00:38:27,033 is showing that the secret of controlling 569 00:38:27,104 --> 00:38:30,096 how we age might be inside us. 570 00:38:30,941 --> 00:38:35,503 The key is the mass of genetic data that is now being discovered. 571 00:38:41,852 --> 00:38:42,511 Here we are. 572 00:38:42,586 --> 00:38:46,078 We're at the Buck Institute for Age Research, north of San Francisco. 573 00:38:46,157 --> 00:38:48,216 This is where the action's taking place. 574 00:38:48,492 --> 00:38:52,087 A hundred top scientists focusing in on one question: 575 00:38:52,630 --> 00:38:54,427 Can we tease apart the molecular 576 00:38:54,498 --> 00:38:57,228 and genetic basis of the ageing process. 577 00:39:02,106 --> 00:39:02,936 Ironically, 578 00:39:03,274 --> 00:39:07,267 to study lifespan you need to find animals that live and die quickly. 579 00:39:08,779 --> 00:39:10,212 In Gordon Lithgow's lab, 580 00:39:10,581 --> 00:39:13,311 they look at how the genes of a tiny worm 581 00:39:13,384 --> 00:39:16,581 called the nematode control its lifespan. 582 00:39:17,822 --> 00:39:20,916 We can isolate mutations, naturally occurring mutations, 583 00:39:21,125 --> 00:39:22,524 in individual genes. 584 00:39:22,660 --> 00:39:25,288 This is an animal with 19,000 genes, 585 00:39:25,363 --> 00:39:28,093 but changing just one of those genes can double the lifespan. 586 00:39:30,634 --> 00:39:33,501 These worms usually live for 20 days. 587 00:39:35,272 --> 00:39:38,833 This is an old guy, 19 days old. 588 00:39:39,410 --> 00:39:41,207 Tissues are degenerating, 589 00:39:41,612 --> 00:39:42,840 moving very slowly, 590 00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:44,206 he's not eating much, 591 00:39:44,281 --> 00:39:46,044 hasn't reproduced now for about ten days, 592 00:39:46,384 --> 00:39:48,477 and there's an accumulation of- 593 00:39:48,586 --> 00:39:51,146 of all sorts of protein and lipid damage here. 594 00:39:54,058 --> 00:39:55,855 So the lab breeds worms 595 00:39:55,926 --> 00:39:59,453 that have had one of their genes changed or mutated. 596 00:40:00,564 --> 00:40:03,328 Most of the mutations are harmful to the worm. 597 00:40:04,502 --> 00:40:06,231 Butjust occasionally 598 00:40:06,604 --> 00:40:10,802 changing a single gene has an astonishing effect. 599 00:40:12,543 --> 00:40:15,034 It enhances the worm's self-repair mechanisms 600 00:40:15,579 --> 00:40:18,548 and enables it to live much longer. 601 00:40:22,052 --> 00:40:25,453 So this guy is also 19 days old and, 602 00:40:25,523 --> 00:40:29,050 you know, he certainly looks old, but he's actually doing a bit better. 603 00:40:29,260 --> 00:40:32,058 They're a bit more vigorous moving around a bit more. 604 00:40:33,364 --> 00:40:37,562 And it has a mutation in - in one of the 18,000 genes in the nematode, 605 00:40:37,635 --> 00:40:40,433 and this mutation, it makes the animal resistant to stress 606 00:40:40,671 --> 00:40:44,573 and also, it seems - so far anyway - is making it longer lived. 607 00:40:44,708 --> 00:40:48,144 So er, it's, a 1548 or something 608 00:40:48,212 --> 00:40:49,907 and er, we'll check out what that is 609 00:40:49,980 --> 00:40:51,572 and it looks like an interesting new gene. 610 00:40:54,151 --> 00:40:57,382 What Gordon just told us is nothing less than amazing. 611 00:40:57,455 --> 00:40:58,615 I mean, think about it: 612 00:40:58,789 --> 00:41:00,586 Manipulating a few genes here 613 00:41:00,658 --> 00:41:03,627 and changing the lifespan of another organism. 614 00:41:03,861 --> 00:41:07,297 And we're not talking about creating a new kind of organism, 615 00:41:07,431 --> 00:41:10,559 we're talking about activating genes that are already here, 616 00:41:10,701 --> 00:41:13,101 prodding them, getting them to activate. 617 00:41:13,170 --> 00:41:16,765 And these genes, these genes are in us as well. 618 00:41:19,076 --> 00:41:20,270 It's now possible 619 00:41:20,478 --> 00:41:25,415 to breed worms that can live six times longer than normal. 620 00:41:27,718 --> 00:41:30,084 The next step is to move on to mammals. 621 00:41:30,254 --> 00:41:34,588 First mice, and then maybe, humans. 622 00:41:35,593 --> 00:41:36,787 It's the holy grail. 623 00:41:36,994 --> 00:41:41,590 Think of this: Mice and humans are 97 per cent genetically identical. 624 00:41:41,966 --> 00:41:44,491 Mice live three years, humans live 100 years. 625 00:41:45,002 --> 00:41:49,871 And somewhere in that three per cent of genes are regulators 626 00:41:49,940 --> 00:41:54,206 that determine the pace at which these two pretty similar organisms age. 627 00:41:55,479 --> 00:41:57,606 We know that we can tweak them in mice. 628 00:41:57,681 --> 00:42:00,514 We don't get huge increases in lifespan, but we do. 629 00:42:01,018 --> 00:42:03,350 And there's a good chance if it works for flies 630 00:42:03,420 --> 00:42:05,786 and it works for worms and it works for mice, 631 00:42:05,856 --> 00:42:07,380 a good chance it'll work for us. 632 00:42:13,430 --> 00:42:16,228 Biologists here and all over the world 633 00:42:16,300 --> 00:42:19,929 may be on the way to cracking the secrets of ageing. 634 00:42:20,771 --> 00:42:22,796 Perhaps at long last 635 00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:25,531 we should be taking very seriously 636 00:42:25,609 --> 00:42:29,511 the idea that we could live a lot longer than we do now. 637 00:42:30,314 --> 00:42:31,713 But that raises another question: 638 00:42:32,016 --> 00:42:33,779 How much time do we need? 639 00:42:34,251 --> 00:42:35,513 150 years? 640 00:42:35,586 --> 00:42:36,712 200 years? 641 00:42:36,787 --> 00:42:40,086 How much time are we going to get with this new kind of technology? 642 00:42:49,633 --> 00:42:51,692 And there's still one thing missing, 643 00:42:52,836 --> 00:42:54,929 because we don'tjust want more time, 644 00:42:55,172 --> 00:42:58,266 but more time when we are young and healthy. 645 00:43:00,311 --> 00:43:05,442 We need to postpone ageing, to drink from the fountain of youth. 646 00:43:11,589 --> 00:43:13,056 And there is one scientist, 647 00:43:13,591 --> 00:43:15,650 a theoretical biologist from Cambridge, 648 00:43:16,026 --> 00:43:19,291 who believes that even this may be possible. 649 00:43:20,764 --> 00:43:23,733 I think ageing can be postponed indefinitely fairly soon. 650 00:43:23,901 --> 00:43:26,495 And the reason I think that is because I think I know how to do it. 651 00:43:28,505 --> 00:43:30,439 Aubrey De Grey's theory is based 652 00:43:30,507 --> 00:43:33,305 not on merely slowing the ageingprocess down, 653 00:43:33,677 --> 00:43:37,169 he's confident that we can actually reverse it. 654 00:43:37,681 --> 00:43:41,412 He believes by the time this girl's generation reaches their fifties, 655 00:43:41,619 --> 00:43:45,077 science could have discovered how to rejuvenate them. 656 00:43:48,859 --> 00:43:50,451 What we expect to be able to do 657 00:43:50,527 --> 00:43:53,360 is to take people who are 55 or 60 maybe 658 00:43:53,430 --> 00:43:56,456 and rejuvenate them back to maybe 40. 659 00:43:56,700 --> 00:43:58,668 And so it's going to take them another 20 years 660 00:43:58,736 --> 00:43:59,862 or maybe a little longer 661 00:43:59,937 --> 00:44:02,269 before they get back to being biologically 60. 662 00:44:02,673 --> 00:44:05,733 In that 20 years we can improve the therapies, 663 00:44:05,809 --> 00:44:07,470 so that some of the things we couldn't fix 664 00:44:07,544 --> 00:44:08,670 we now know how to fix. 665 00:44:08,746 --> 00:44:10,441 It means that we're basically solving problems 666 00:44:10,514 --> 00:44:12,607 faster than they are catching up with us. 667 00:44:14,852 --> 00:44:18,515 De Grey believes that his theory could become a reality 668 00:44:18,589 --> 00:44:21,387 because right now biology is on a roll. 669 00:44:25,029 --> 00:44:29,193 Worldwide, hundreds of biologists are searching for ageing cures. 670 00:44:30,334 --> 00:44:32,666 And they're starting to find answers. 671 00:44:37,041 --> 00:44:37,939 If he's right, 672 00:44:38,008 --> 00:44:42,536 it would only be freak accidents that would prevent full-blown immortality. 673 00:44:44,214 --> 00:44:46,079 People are still going to be mortal. 674 00:44:46,150 --> 00:44:47,549 People - there's not going to be immortality 675 00:44:47,618 --> 00:44:48,949 in the biblical sense from this. 676 00:44:49,019 --> 00:44:50,816 People are still going to die from things 677 00:44:50,888 --> 00:44:52,321 that have nothing to do with how old they are, 678 00:44:52,389 --> 00:44:55,984 like crossing the road carelessly, or homicide or whatever. 679 00:44:56,060 --> 00:44:57,618 And on average, 680 00:44:57,695 --> 00:45:00,061 it looks as though the risk of dying 681 00:45:00,130 --> 00:45:02,462 from those causes stays the same as it is now 682 00:45:02,700 --> 00:45:05,999 people will live to around a thousand, maybe a couple of thousand. 683 00:45:07,638 --> 00:45:10,937 Humans living for a couple of thousand years? 684 00:45:11,942 --> 00:45:15,309 This would be one of the most radical interventions in human life 685 00:45:15,379 --> 00:45:17,313 that science could ever achieve, 686 00:45:17,614 --> 00:45:21,380 with profound social consequences for future generations. 687 00:45:23,387 --> 00:45:24,718 Do we really want it? 688 00:45:26,090 --> 00:45:28,957 Every day about 150,000 people die, 689 00:45:29,326 --> 00:45:32,295 and out of those 150,000 about two thirds, 690 00:45:32,362 --> 00:45:33,556 about 100,000 691 00:45:33,630 --> 00:45:37,498 die of causes that young people basically never die of. 692 00:45:37,835 --> 00:45:40,269 Which means, one way or another, they die of ageing. 693 00:45:40,537 --> 00:45:41,868 So if we really do all this, 694 00:45:41,939 --> 00:45:44,806 if we really postpone ageing indefinitely, 695 00:45:44,875 --> 00:45:47,469 we will be saving 100,000 lives a day. 696 00:45:48,979 --> 00:45:51,914 So if you are worried about inequality 697 00:45:51,982 --> 00:45:53,244 or how will we pay the pensions 698 00:45:53,317 --> 00:45:55,615 or wouldn't we get bored or whatever it might be, 699 00:45:55,953 --> 00:45:59,582 my answer to you is not these problems are silly problems. 700 00:45:59,890 --> 00:46:02,518 What's silly is to suggest that they're problems on a scale 701 00:46:02,593 --> 00:46:05,858 thatjustifies condemning 100,000 people a day 702 00:46:05,929 --> 00:46:08,124 to an unnecessarily early death forever. 703 00:46:13,704 --> 00:46:17,037 Okay, so let's have some wishful thinking. 704 00:46:17,474 --> 00:46:21,308 Just imagine for the moment that Aubrey De Grey is right. 705 00:46:22,713 --> 00:46:27,047 In some near future, science has developed the elixir of life. 706 00:46:29,153 --> 00:46:31,587 A potion that will completely cure ageing 707 00:46:31,855 --> 00:46:33,823 and keep you young forever. 708 00:46:36,627 --> 00:46:39,596 Imagine for the moment being able to stop the clock, 709 00:46:40,063 --> 00:46:44,796 being 18, 25, 35, all over again. 710 00:46:45,269 --> 00:46:47,635 Wouldn't that be absolutely incredible? 711 00:46:48,205 --> 00:46:49,433 However, I warn you, 712 00:46:50,007 --> 00:46:52,999 there's one question still unanswered about immortality, 713 00:46:53,377 --> 00:46:56,278 and that is - would you drink this? 714 00:46:56,713 --> 00:46:58,544 I could do with a little more time, 715 00:46:58,615 --> 00:47:02,881 but 200 years or even like 100 years is a pretty long time I think. 716 00:47:02,953 --> 00:47:04,011 I'm happy right now. 717 00:47:04,254 --> 00:47:06,119 So yes, I guess I would drink this elixir of life. 718 00:47:07,891 --> 00:47:09,518 Would I be the first one trying it? 719 00:47:10,494 --> 00:47:12,257 I think life would become mundane. 720 00:47:12,329 --> 00:47:16,288 I think that human emotions would suffer profoundly. 721 00:47:17,434 --> 00:47:18,765 Sure, absolutely. 722 00:47:18,869 --> 00:47:22,771 I like life and er, I'd be quite happy to live an awful lot more of it. 723 00:47:22,940 --> 00:47:28,537 Too sad when all my loved ones pass, too sad when my world disappears. 724 00:47:28,612 --> 00:47:30,011 Already I'm sick of everything. 725 00:47:30,881 --> 00:47:32,212 I'm not saying I wouldn't, 726 00:47:32,282 --> 00:47:34,216 but I'd need to think really carefully about it. 727 00:47:34,852 --> 00:47:38,652 I'd have to think back and see what my best age was 728 00:47:38,722 --> 00:47:40,417 now that I've reached this age. 729 00:47:41,325 --> 00:47:43,452 It'd be so boring to live forever. 730 00:47:43,727 --> 00:47:44,921 It would just be awful I think. 731 00:47:45,596 --> 00:47:47,461 I think it would be great 732 00:47:47,531 --> 00:47:50,329 if everyone had to live with the consequences of their actions. 733 00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:52,493 I think the problem is, humans die too soon. 734 00:47:54,037 --> 00:47:55,504 I'd rather die really. 735 00:47:55,572 --> 00:47:56,129 Oh, is that right? 736 00:47:56,206 --> 00:47:57,503 Yeah, I think that what makes life 737 00:47:57,574 --> 00:48:01,271 so worthy is that at the end we die, we all go. 738 00:48:01,345 --> 00:48:04,508 So this is what makes it so extraordinary. 739 00:48:05,749 --> 00:48:06,738 I was surprised 740 00:48:06,817 --> 00:48:09,945 that more young people didn't want to drink from the elixir of life, 741 00:48:10,053 --> 00:48:12,851 but then again young people think they're Peter Pan. 742 00:48:12,923 --> 00:48:13,821 The live forever. 743 00:48:13,924 --> 00:48:17,826 Just wait till they're 70 years of age and they feel their mortality. 744 00:48:18,262 --> 00:48:19,354 But as for me 745 00:48:20,464 --> 00:48:23,024 would I drink from the fountain of youth? 746 00:48:24,401 --> 00:48:25,333 Sure.