In his e-book Why We Die, writer Venki Ramakrishnan appears to be like at trendy organic analysis to know why our our bodies age — and ultimately die. “It is a peculiar state of affairs as a result of we’re a set of cells and once we’re alive, hundreds of thousands of our cells are dying. … After we die, most of our cells are nonetheless alive,” says Ramakrishnan. “And so what does it imply to say you die?”
cooperr007/Getty Photographs
conceal caption
toggle caption
cooperr007/Getty Photographs
In his e-book Why We Die, writer Venki Ramakrishnan appears to be like at trendy organic analysis to know why our our bodies age — and ultimately die. “It is a peculiar state of affairs as a result of we’re a set of cells and once we’re alive, hundreds of thousands of our cells are dying. … After we die, most of our cells are nonetheless alive,” says Ramakrishnan. “And so what does it imply to say you die?”
cooperr007/Getty Photographs
People have seen a big enhance in life expectancy over the previous 200 years — however not in general lifespan. No one on report has lived previous 122 years. So, for this early Halloween episode, host Regina G. Barber asks: Why can we age and why can we die? Microbiologist Venki Ramakrishnan explains a number of the mechanisms within our our bodies that contribute to our decay — and tells us if it is potential to intervene within the course of.
Try Venki Ramakrishnan’s e-book Why We Die.
Interested by different biology information? Electronic mail us at shortwave@npr.org and we would cowl your matter on a future episode!
Hearken to Quick Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Hear to each episode of Quick Wave sponsor-free and help our work at NPR by signing up for Quick Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
This episode was produced by Jessica Yung and edited by Rebecca Ramirez. The details have been checked by Tyler Jones. The audio engineer was Kwesi Lee.
