Through human history, the holy grail has been immortality. It seems that humans have sought this since they first realized that sooner or later, everyone dies. We know that immortality was on the mind of at least some people in the 27 th century B.C. That was when the Epic of Gilgamesh was written. This is believed to be the earliest work of fiction and focused on immortal life. This certainly doesn't mean that people hadn't thought about this topic before. It probably was on the mind of the first person that realized the humans weren't immortal. There are just so many stories about people searching places and things, that would grant them eternal life. For thousands of years people known as alchemists not only tried to change base minerals into valuable ones, but they were also looking for some elixir that would let them live forever.

Some people say the if human immortality was ever achieved, it just might hurt the human race. When people hear this statement they sometimes wonder how this could hurt anything? I guess it depends on what people's beliefs are. If a person believes that evolution is what drives the human race, than immortality would be a setback for evolution for obvious reasons. How could anyone evolve if everyone lived forever? It is true that there would probably be children constantly born, but the renewal of the race would be slowed down from decade to decade. Another thing to consider is that people with inferior genes would not die out, thus spreading more inferior genes that might not have existed, if that person died. In other words, if you die, you stop spreading your genes. It is thought that sooner or later inferior genes will die out and superior ones will substitute for them. An example of this might be the substitution of genes in some animals that give them better vision, so that their species might survive.

One question that has been asked, is if any creature on this earth is immortal? One scientist has stated that Lobsters are basically believed to be immortal, but never live those years that they could, because they are the favorite food source of so many species. It is hard to know if that is true. One of the major problems is that even people that believe in evolution can not explain some things. One of the most famous of these problems is that old problem, what came first the chicken or the egg. As a matter of fact, any animals that come from eggs present the same problem, where did the first one come from. If the first one came from an egg, where did that egg come from? I personally think that the egg had to come from the animal. This is not the topic of what I am talking about however. Another animal that is said to be immortal is the alligator. Some scientists state that the only reason that they die is from their life in the wild. Sooner or later they get killed. It is said that if you put them in a zoo and protect them from danger, they will grow indefinitely and the female will lay even more eggs as she ages. The animals don't seem to have decreased abilities either. Some scientists think that growing is the key to immortality. It seems that all animals that have a fixed body size die of old age.

I think that everyone knows that the ancient Chinese discovered gunpowder, but I wonder how many know that they were looking for an elixir that would give them eternal life? Yeah, that's right, gunpowder was a mistake and probably one that we would have been much better off without. The sad part of the whole thing is that many of these people would consume what they had discovered, to see if it extended their lives and often it would end them. There are so many questions connected with immortality. One of these questions is how does bacteria stay alive for hundreds of thousands of years? Bacteria has been found even inside rocks that were very old. There are even some plants that don't die, even when deprived of water. They look like they dry up and stay that way, but when water is added, they come back to life in just a couple of hours. One of these plants is found in India and is an herb know as Sanjivani booti, It almost seems that if the world is searched for plants, animals and microscopic life, we will find a lot more than we think that we will. I am not saying that we will discover a way to prolong life forever, but who knows, we just might find a way of prolonging life a little longer? Then there is the chance that we might even find life on other worlds they live a lot longer than most life on earth and we might find something that that can be applied to human life.

When we look at the news, there seems to be a lot more emphasis on trying to find ways to extend human life. Many articles have been written about human immortality. If nothing else, it looks like a lot of scientists have indicated that it just might be possible to extend human life to at least 600 years. While this is not immortality, it certainly would provide time to find that elusive immortality drug. One thing that we don't want, is some type of immortality where we would have to go into a dormant mode like a bacteria. What good would that be? Knowing how the drug companies work, the ideal thing for them would be a life extension pill that we have to take every day. Think about it, even if they only got $1.00 per pill and everyone in the world took one every day, that would be approximately $6 billion dollars per day. For all we know, there could be a prospective drug discovered already, but why would drug companies want us to get it, if it stopped us from needing all those other pills that the drug companies make a fortune on? I just can't help but feel that anyone that thinks that a drug company would come out with anything that would hurt their business has brain freeze.

Scientists have increased the life span of yeast by ten times. The yeast seems to be exactly the same as the younger yeast. They did this by changing the genetics of the yeast and changed it's diet. Scientists are starting to control life at the cellular level. Sure yeast is a simple organism, but the fact that we have been able to control a life form at such a basic level says volumes for the scientists. This preliminary accomplishment will certainly lead to controlling cells in more complex creatures and eventually in us. It could turn out that while trying to find the secret of extending life, we might just find out how to defend against diseases and the only cause of death some day might be accidental. I think that we have to think of the human body as the hardware for a computer and the computer is our brain. The better the hardware operates, the more efficient the entire process of computing, or living in this case, is. There is so much that we don't know. We don't know for sure what would happen to someone if they were in space for a very long time, except for the fact that without gravity their bones and muscles would weaken. Would we age or even age at the same rate? This would be an interesting experiment.

There is a group of Norway Spruce trees in Sweden that have been dated back over 9,500 years and they are still going strong. A tree was cut down in Britain that was 4,800 plus years old. A tiny animal, a member of a hydrozoan species, matures then becomes a polyp again and matures again indefinitely. In other words it is constantly being reborn. No one can tell the true age of these animals. A sponge in the Arctic has been found to be over 1,500 years old. A fungus has been found that could be as old as 8,500 years. Looking at these things, it makes one wonder why they have such longevity? Will we attain an extension of our lives? It is almost a certainty, but it may not be for some time and it may come with some perils. As some drugs have demonstrated, there will probably be some side effects for some people. Another problem is that no one could know what will happen after extended use. Remember this drug might extend our lives for quite some time, but it may change our ending. When people finally die, it might be a very unpleasant death.