【在生活中學習語言】 Abolishing ageing：How to live forever 如何長生不老
2008/9/14 | 作者：黃裕美輯譯
It looks unlikely that medical sci-ence will abolish the process of ageing. But it no longer looks impossible.
醫學再進步，看來也不可能停止老化的過程，但這看來已不再是遙不可及的夢。
"In the long run," as John Maynard Keynes observed, "we are all dead." True. But can the short run be elon-gated in a way that makes the long run longer And if so, how, and at what cost People have dreamt of immortality since time immemorial. They have sought it since the first al-chemist put an elixir of life on the same shopping list as a way to turn lead into gold. And now, with the growth of biological knowledge that has marked the past few decades, a few researchers believe it might be within reach.
「就長遠來看，人終究會死，」〔英國知名經濟學家〕凱恩斯說。沒錯，但可否以某種方式把短程拉長，使長遠拖更久？如果可以，如何進行，代價多大？自從盤古開天闢地以來，人類一直夢想能長生不死。早在第一個煉金術士把長生不老藥和化鉛為金的妙方放在同一張採購清單上時，大家就開始尋找這個秘方。如今，隨著生物學知識過去數十年來一日千里，有少數幾位研究人員相信，長生不老已指日可待。
To think about the question, it is important to understand why organ-isms—people included—age in the first place. People are like machines: they wear out. That much is obvious. However a machine can always be repaired. A good mechanic with a stock of spare parts can keep it going indefinitely. Eventually, no part of the original may remain, but it still carries on.
思考這個問題，重要的是要先了解為何生物，包括人類在內會老化。人和機器一樣會崩壞磨損，那是很清楚的事實。但機器壞了可以修理。一個好技師，只要有充分的零件，就可以讓機器不停運轉。最後，也許原始的零件都已汰換，但機器還是可以走。
The question, of course, is whether the machine is worth repairing. It is here that people and nature disagree. From the individual's point of view, survival is an imperative. You cannot reproduce unless you are alive. A fear of death is a sensible evolved response and, since ageing is a sure way of dy-ing, it is no surprise that people want to stop it in its tracks. Moreover, even the appearance of ageing can be harmful. It reduces the range of po-tential sexual partners who find you attractive—since it is a sign that you are not going to be around all that long to help bring up baby—and thus, again, curbs your reproduction.
當然，問題在機器是否值得維修，這也是人之異於大自然的地方。從個人觀點看來，活下去是必要的，人要活著才能生育繁衍後代。怕死則是一種隨著人類進化所形成的合理反應。由於老化是死亡必經之路，人類想在中途加以攔截也就不足為奇了。何況，即使是老態龍鍾也很傷人，它減少可能被你吸引的性伴侶對象，因為這顯示你不會再活很久，久到足以幫忙撫養孩子長大成人，同時也因此扼殺你的生育力。
The paradox is that the individual's evolved desire not to age is opposed by another evolutionary force: the disposable soma. The soma (the an-cient Greek word for body) is all of a body's cells apart from the sex cells. The soma's role is to get those sex cells, and thus the organism's genes, into the next generation. And if evo-lutionary logic requires the soma to age and die in order for this to happen, so be it. Which is a pity, for evolu-tionary logic does, indeed, seem to require that.
矛盾的是：一個人隨著進化而希望不老的慾望，和另一種進化的力量相剋，那就是用完就丟的臭皮囊。古希臘語用來指人的軀體的字是soma，其中除了性的細胞，都是人體細胞。這個軀體的角色是把那些性細胞，也就是生物基因，帶到下一代。如果演進的邏輯是軀殼必須老化死亡才能發生，那就順其自然吧。遺憾的是，演進的邏輯的確似乎要求如此。
The argument is this. All organisms are going to die of something even-tually. That something may be an ac-cident, a fight, a disease or an en-counter with a hungry predator. There is thus a premium on repro-ducing early rather than conserving resources for a future that may never come. The reason why repairs are not perfect is that they are costly and re-sources invested in them might be used for reproduction instead. Often, therefore, the body's mechanics prefer lash-ups to complete rebuilds—or simply do not bother with the job at all. And if that is so, the place to start looking for longer life is in the repair shop.
整個論點是，所有生物終究難免死於某一事件，也許是車禍、打架、生病或碰到一個饑不擇食的掠奪者。因此應該鼓勵提早生育，而不是保存資源給可能永遠不會發生的未來。為什麼修理不見得很完美是因為代價高昂，而且投資在這方面的資源可能會被挪用到生育上。因此，身體機制往往寧可臨時應急湊合，也不願完全重建，或甚至根本不加理會。果真如此，要開始尋求延年益壽的地方就是身體修理店。
One man who has done just that is Aubrey de Grey. Dr de Grey, who is an independent researcher working in Cambridge, England, is a man who provokes strong opinions. He is un-doubtedly a visionary, but many bi-ologists think that his visions are not so much insights as mischievous mi-rages, for he believes that anti-ageing technology could come about in a future that many now alive might live to see. Vision or mirage, Dr de Grey has defined the problem precisely. Unlike most workers in the field, he has an engineering background, and is thus ideally placed to look into the biological repair shop. As he sees things, ageing has seven components; deal with all seven, and you stop the process in its tracks. He refers to this approach as strategies for engineered negligible senescence (SENS).
英國劍橋大學的狄格瑞是抗老化醫學的鋒頭人物，他獨立從事終結老化的研究工作，但他引發很強烈的爭論。他無疑很有遠見，但很多生物學家認為，他的論點並非深入的洞見，而不過是徒增困擾的海市蜃樓，因為他相信，抗老化科技未來一定會發生，而現在還活著的人很多可能可以看到。不管是深入的洞見還是海市蜃樓，狄格瑞已經明確界定這個問題。不像這個領域大半研究人員，他有工程背景，因此很適合透視生物學的修理店。就他所見，老化有七個元素，只要能處理掉這七個元素，就可以阻止老化的進程，他稱他那套方法為「消弭老化工程策略」。
The seven sisters that Dr de Grey wishes to slaughter with SENS are cell loss, apoptosis-resistance (the ten-dency of cells to refuse to die when they are supposed to), gene mutations in the cell nucleus, gene mutations in the mitochondria (the cell's pow-er-packs), the accumulation of junk inside cells, the accumulation of junk outside cells and the accumulation of inappropriate chemical links in the material that supports cells.
狄格瑞想用「消弭老化工程策略」屠殺的這七姊妹包括細胞流失、抑制凋亡（細胞應該死亡時傾向拒絕死亡）、細胞核基因突變、線粒體（細胞的電力包）基因突變，細胞內外堆積垃圾，及支持細胞的物質堆積不當的化學鍵。
It does, at least, break the problem into manageable parts. It also suggests that multiple approaches to the ques-tion may be needed. Broadly, these are of two sorts: to manage the pro-cess of wear and tear to slow it down and mask its consequences, or to ac-cept its inevitability and bring the body in for servicing at regular inter-vals to replace the worn-out parts.
這至少把問題分解為可管理的部分。這同時也意味著多管齊下處理這個問題有其必要。大體而言可分為兩種：處理磨損的過程以減緩及掩蓋其後遺症，或接受這不可避免的趨勢，並把身體定期送去維修，更換損毀的零件。
（取材自經濟學人）
來源：人間福報
++++++++++++++++++++++
文章定位：
人間的美在何處呢？或許在我們的四周中。風吹起了，雨落了，楓被吹落，何處是歸處呢？葉落地，沒有任何一處是葉的家，葉和風一樣在流浪，所以葉和風的悲傷憂愁存在不同的地方和空間中，無人會去理會.....
