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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Man, Welcome back to Coast to Coast George Norri with you.

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Speaker 2: Venki Rama Krishnan back with us. Shared the two thousand

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Speaker 2: and nine Nobel Prize in Chemistry for uncovering the structure

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Speaker 2: of the ribosome. A member of the National Academy of Sciences,

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Speaker 2: he runs the Rama Krishnan Lab at the MRC Laboratory

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Speaker 2: of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. From twenty fifteen to

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty, he served as president of the Royal Society.

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Speaker 2: Now that's one of the world's oldest scientific organizations. His

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Speaker 2: latest work is called Why We Die, The New Science

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Speaker 2: of Aging and the Quest for Immortality. Venkey, welcome back

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Speaker 2: to the program.

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Speaker 3: It's been a while, it's been a while. Excited to

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Speaker 3: be here. Good to have you, Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 2: Great book, by the way, well done.

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Speaker 3: Thank you. It's something humans have wondered about ever since

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Speaker 3: we've been humans, and finally, I think science is starting

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Speaker 3: to provide some answers for the question why we die.

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Speaker 2: You know, the Bible talks about Methusela and people like

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Speaker 2: that living nine hundred some years. Were those real years

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Speaker 2: they were talking about or were they just like weeks?

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Speaker 2: What were they?

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Speaker 3: I think there were maybe metaphors first people who are

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Speaker 3: very long lived, because ever since we've had accurate records,

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Speaker 3: the record holder is a frenchwoman named Sean Calmond who

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Speaker 3: lived to be one hundred and twenty two, and I

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Speaker 3: should say for most of her life she smoked a

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Speaker 3: cigarette and had a glass of port every day, and

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Speaker 3: she also ate two and a half pounds of chocolate

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Speaker 3: the week. I wouldn't recommend the first two. I could

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Speaker 3: get behind the chocolate bill.

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Speaker 2: Maybe the port helped a little bit, huh.

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Speaker 3: I don't think so. Maybe no, I really doubted it.

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Speaker 3: It just means, you know, our genetic makeup was so

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Speaker 3: good at repairing the damage we accumulate with age that

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Speaker 3: she just lived for a very long time. And I

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Speaker 3: think she was also very happy and stress free person.

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Speaker 3: That probably helped a bit too.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, And then we are Our life span now is

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Speaker 2: tremendously higher than what it was one hundred years ago,

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Speaker 2: isn't it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's well. There are two kinds of lifespans. One

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Speaker 3: is average lifespan, so what they call life expectancy and

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Speaker 3: that's more than doubled. So you could argue that humanity

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Speaker 3: as a whole is living a whole extra life, you know,

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Speaker 3: as a result of advances. But most of those advances

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Speaker 3: had to do with reducing infant mortality. So in the

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Speaker 3: old days, children would babies would die at birth or

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Speaker 3: they were very young. So by curing a lot of

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Speaker 3: infectious diseases, you know, producing antibiotics, but also public health,

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Speaker 3: good sanitation, clean water, vaccination, so all those things have

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Speaker 3: reduced infant mortality and that's helped us live longer. Now

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Speaker 3: at the other end, we've also made some progress, not

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Speaker 3: quite as much, but some progress. So we've we're tacked.

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Speaker 3: We've been able to tackle heart disease, cancer, you know,

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Speaker 3: to varying degrees, and so that's helped as well. So

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Speaker 3: whereas in the old days, on average, you would expect

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Speaker 3: to live to be a forty or so, now we're

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Speaker 3: living on average to eighties. But the average masks something,

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Speaker 3: you know, even in the old days, well, people will

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Speaker 3: live to be sixty, seventy eighty, maybe even more. So

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Speaker 3: the real question is what is our maximum LIFESPANXE lifespan

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Speaker 3: may not have changed very much, you know, which is

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Speaker 3: if you don't get sick, if you don't get eaten

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Speaker 3: or killed or starve, how long can you expect to live?

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Speaker 3: And that's you know, as I say, the record hold

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Speaker 3: is one hundred and twenty two and nobody else has

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Speaker 3: cracked one hundred and twenty and she died thirty years ago.

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Speaker 3: So although people are living to be older and older,

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Speaker 3: you know, you get more and more people living into

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Speaker 3: their nineties, you get more people living past one hundred,

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Speaker 3: but you don't get more people living past one hundred

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Speaker 3: and ten or so. So that suggests that beyond that,

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Speaker 3: we're running into some natural limit of our biology. And

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Speaker 3: I think what scientists are asking is what happens, why

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Speaker 3: do we age? And what is that natural limit? And

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Speaker 3: is it possible to extend that limit beyond one hundred

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Speaker 3: and twenty. So that's the kind of excitement in the field.

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Speaker 2: Some people think he don't look their age. I mean

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Speaker 2: some people look fifty, some people look eighty.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, so people look people age at very different rates.

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Speaker 3: So we're using time, which is chronological time as measured

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Speaker 3: in months and years, as a kind of proxy for

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Speaker 3: the process of aging, because everything happens with time, but

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Speaker 3: it doesn't happen at the same rate with everyone, and

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Speaker 3: that's because different people. First of all, there's lifestyle differences.

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Speaker 3: Second a's genetics, and the combination means that different people

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Speaker 3: suffer damage to their cell the molecules and their cells

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Speaker 3: and their body which goes up to their tissues at

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Speaker 3: different rates. And so you know, you have people at

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Speaker 3: fifty or extremely active, others at fifty are starting to

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Speaker 3: look old, you know, and they're even eighty year olds

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Speaker 3: who look very sprised. Oh, you know, I think biologists

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Speaker 3: are not trying to find better markers than just your birthday.

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Speaker 3: You know, they're trying to see if they take a

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Speaker 3: blood sample, can they analyze it to try and determine

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Speaker 3: what your biological age is, not your your age since

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Speaker 3: your birthday, but your biological age.

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Speaker 2: And then in terms of the human body, then key,

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Speaker 2: some people get sick, some people get cancer, some people don't.

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Speaker 2: Why Why why are some people seem to be immune

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Speaker 2: to disease and other people get everything?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that that's again, it's very related to the question

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Speaker 3: you just asked about why people some people age faster.

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Speaker 3: It is it is all ultimately a combination of our

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Speaker 3: genes and our environment. Our lifestyle and uh some people.

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Speaker 3: So cancer, cancer and aging I've written throughout the book

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Speaker 3: they're very related. In fact, as we age, the risk

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Speaker 3: of cancer goes up. And both of them involve our

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Speaker 3: cells breaking down. In one case, the cell breaks down

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Speaker 3: in a way that it starts dividing like crazy and

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Speaker 3: kind of takes over the body, and that's cancer. In

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Speaker 3: the other case, cells start breaking down and eventually a

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Speaker 3: system fails, and that's what aging and death are. So

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Speaker 3: they are related. And it's because the people who don't

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Speaker 3: get cancer, I'll bet you they're also often longer lived people.

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Speaker 3: The people who don't get infection and cancer, it means

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Speaker 3: their ability to repair damage and thereby prevent cancer is

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Speaker 3: working very well, and so that's why they don't get cancer.

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Speaker 3: And in other cases they are more susceptible. But of

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Speaker 3: course cancer is all so a little bit of a

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Speaker 3: chance event. You know, all of us potentially are susceptible

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Speaker 3: to cancer because our DNA is attacked by the environment

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Speaker 3: all the time, even if they're no nasty chemicals, even

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Speaker 3: in the normal cell, our DNA keeps getting damaged. But

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Speaker 3: we have elaborate repair mechanisms which constantly checks our DNA

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Speaker 3: and repairs the damage. So the problem happens when that

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Speaker 3: repair mechanism itself is affected as well. And of course,

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Speaker 3: with time, some damage even escapes the repair mechanism, So

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Speaker 3: all of us are potentially susceptible to cancer. In fact,

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Speaker 3: they say, you know, by the time you reach my age,

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Speaker 3: which is I'm seventy one, I might actually have, you know,

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Speaker 3: several cancer cells inside me. They just haven't developed to

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Speaker 3: the point where they're causing disease, and you know, maybe

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Speaker 3: before that my immune system will take care of it. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, cancers, some people are just unlucky. That's just

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Speaker 3: you know, how it is, and some people have a

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Speaker 3: poorer repair mechanism than others.

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Speaker 2: I've always believed exactly what you've just said, that most people,

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Speaker 2: if not all of us, have some cancer cells in

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Speaker 2: our body. It's just that our immune systems are so

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Speaker 2: different that we keep it contained and they don't spread.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that's true for many people.

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Speaker 3: That's true.

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Speaker 2: Now, what is your definition, Vinky of a cancer cell?

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Speaker 3: What is it? I would say there's some hallmarks of cancer.

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Speaker 3: One is that it's escaped the control over cell division.

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Speaker 3: That is, you know, normally our cells multiply and then

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Speaker 3: when they form the tissue, at some point they stop multiplying.

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Speaker 3: So your liver, for example, it doesn't keep growing and

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Speaker 3: start taking over your entire abdomen or your stomach, or

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Speaker 3: your intestines or your bones don't start growing indefinitely, so

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Speaker 3: there's a control over growth. And when those control systems

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Speaker 3: break down and cell starts dividing indefinitely, then you start

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Speaker 3: getting cancer. The other hallmark is that the cancer cells

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Speaker 3: also promote in order to grow, they also need blood

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Speaker 3: vessels throughout them because they need nutrients to grow, and

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Speaker 3: so they also promote the growth of blood vessels around

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Speaker 3: the cancer. So there are a number of kind of hallmarks.

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Speaker 3: Very famous cancer biologists Bob Weinberg wrote a famous article

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Speaker 3: called Hallmarks of Cancer, which really talks about, you know,

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Speaker 3: what are some of the big characteristics of cancer. But

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Speaker 3: I would say this uncontrolled runaway growth is probably a

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Speaker 3: key key hallmark.

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Speaker 2: How important is family genetics?

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Speaker 3: To genetics is very important. People don't like to There

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Speaker 3: are people who don't like to admit it because it

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Speaker 3: seems unfair, you know, it offends their sense of fairness

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Speaker 3: that some people you know have, you know, genes that

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Speaker 3: make them predisposed of things. But I think genetics is

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Speaker 3: is very important, and you know, biologists recognize this. For example,

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Speaker 3: people with mutations that might make you predisposed to breast cancer,

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Speaker 3: now they're a good tests for them, you know, So

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Speaker 3: you can you know, if you're a woman in your

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Speaker 3: twenties or thirties, you could and you have cancer in

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Speaker 3: your family, you could go get a test to see

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Speaker 3: if you're you're susceptible, and then you could start trying

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Speaker 3: to do something about it before it becomes serious. So

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Speaker 3: and as I think as biology progresses, we are going

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Speaker 3: to have more and more sophisticated tests. But as I say,

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Speaker 3: not everything is genetic. Sometimes it's just the luck of

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Speaker 3: the drawer. You know, your DNA gets damaged and by

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Speaker 3: chance it escapes your repair mechanism, and it's a series

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Speaker 3: of things happen and you get cancer. You know, So

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Speaker 3: even if you're a very healthy individual with a good

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Speaker 3: immune system, it doesn't mean you're never going to get cancer.

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Speaker 3: It just means your odds are better.

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Speaker 2: In your book Why We Die, the subtitle of course,

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Speaker 2: is the New Science of Aging and the Quest for

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Speaker 2: Immortality or how real is that? Possibility.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm more on the skeptical side, but I have

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Speaker 3: to tell you there are people, especially in California, California,

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Speaker 3: I think breeds or attracts optimists, and there are people

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Speaker 3: there who you know, would disagree with me. My feeling

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Speaker 3: is our natural biology is so complicated that well, as

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Speaker 3: I said, our natural biology seems to suggest we hit

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Speaker 3: a barrier at about one hundred and twenty. Nobody's crossed

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Speaker 3: that except as one moment. So I think that our

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Speaker 3: natural biology as we have evolved so that we break

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Speaker 3: down after about one hundred and twenty years, and we

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Speaker 3: could ask why we live to be one hundred and

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Speaker 3: twenty In an insect only lives for a day, that's

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Speaker 3: another interesting question, and tortoises and whales live for two

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Speaker 3: three hundred years. So but I think that breaching that

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Speaker 3: barrier would mean altering our natural biology. But our natural

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Speaker 3: biology is very complex. It's not as if you can

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Speaker 3: change one thing without affecting a bunch of other things.

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Speaker 3: And so my view is, yes, it's theoretically possible, but

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Speaker 3: it's also theoretically possible that we could colonize Mars or

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Speaker 3: even colonize some other galaxy. But it's not going to

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Speaker 3: happen tomorrow, right, So I don't know how to put

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Speaker 3: it on a scale of difficulty. People used to think

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Speaker 3: it's going to the moon was a fantasy. But you know,

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Speaker 3: we did it.

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Speaker 2: Right so many times, many times.

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Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, so I think, you know, in theory

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Speaker 3: it's possible, and practice it's going to be harder than

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Speaker 3: some of these optimists think.

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Speaker 2: Why does a small dog seem to outlive a bigger dog?

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Speaker 2: What does that have to do with.

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Speaker 3: A that's very interesting. So you know, if you take species,

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Speaker 3: it turns out the larger you are, the longer you

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Speaker 3: live on average between species. So for example, a mouse

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Speaker 3: will only live for about two years. Human lives, you know,

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Speaker 3: as I say, one hundred years, and then you have

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Speaker 3: blue whale or you know, a greenland shark will live

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Speaker 3: four hundred years. You know, certain whales live for two

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Speaker 3: hundred three hundred years. So generally there's a correlation between

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Speaker 3: size and longevity. And this is because you know, the

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Speaker 3: evolutionary theory that biologists like suggests that you know, they

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Speaker 3: don't Evolution hasn't doesn't care how long you live. It

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Speaker 3: really cares about whether you live long enough to reproduce

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Speaker 3: and pass on your genes because you're selecting for these genes. Now,

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Speaker 3: if you're a small animal, then you know, you don't

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Speaker 3: there's no point in biology spending a lot of resources

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Speaker 3: into repairing and maintaining that body if you're going to

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Speaker 3: be eaten by a predator or you're going to starve

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Speaker 3: to death, or you know, because you can't you know,

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Speaker 3: you don't have much foraging capacity. So so in that case,

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Speaker 3: biology puts a lot of effort into making you grow

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Speaker 3: fast and reproducing fast, and that's what mice do or

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Speaker 3: you know, small animals do generally. And then if you're larger,

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Speaker 3: it does pay to live longer because you have a

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Speaker 3: better chance of finding a mate. You could have offspring

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Speaker 3: over a longer life, and so you have you're increasing

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Speaker 3: your chances that way. So that's the difference between species.

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Speaker 3: But to get back to your question about within a species,

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Speaker 3: like dogs versus you know, small dogs versus large dogs. Well,

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Speaker 3: it turns out that the same pathways that help you

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Speaker 3: grow faster and mature faster early on also factor you

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Speaker 3: later on. They cause some of the problems of a

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Speaker 3: later on. And this is true throughout biology. The things

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Speaker 3: that help you early in life. Even things that prevent

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Speaker 3: cancer early in life have helped to cause aging later

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Speaker 3: in life. And that's because, as I said, biology wants

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Speaker 3: to make sure you don't get cancer. You grow fast

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Speaker 3: and get to reproduce, and then after you've done that,

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Speaker 3: it doesn't really much care what happens to you, you know.

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Speaker 3: So that's why you know young dogs are small dogs

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Speaker 3: live longer because they don't have those growth pathways, are

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Speaker 3: not as strong in them, and they grow slowly and

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Speaker 3: they're and they're small, and then the payoff is that

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Speaker 3: they live longer.

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Speaker 2: RICKI, does it seem that people who are happier, better

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Speaker 2: attitudes generally will live longer than people who are negative

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Speaker 2: all the time.

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Speaker 3: I don't know that data, but everything I know about

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Speaker 3: the biology of aging which suggests that being happier is

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Speaker 3: a great thing because being happy reduces stress, and stress

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Speaker 3: causes all kinds of haboc it. You know, a lot

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Speaker 3: generates these hormones like cortisol, which have bad effects. In fact,

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Speaker 3: one of the effects, oddly enough, is it shortens our

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Speaker 3: chromosomes as ourselves multiplied, and that's one of the causes

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Speaker 3: of aging. But it has very widespread effects so I

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Speaker 3: would say yes. Happiness and being sort of generally you know,

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Speaker 3: content with life is probably a recipe.

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