What I'm suggesting is that the SIR2 gene in yeast and the SIRT genes in mammals are all descendants of gene B, the original gene silencer in M. supe… - David A. Sinclair

The way doctors treat illness today "is simple," wrote S. Jay Olshansky, a demographer at the University of Illinois. "As soon as a disease appears, attack that disease as if nothing else is present; beat the disease down, and once you succeed, push the patient out the door until he or she faces the next challenge; then beat that one down. Repeat until failure."

WE ARE ANALOG, THEREFORE WE AGE. According to the Information Theory of Aging, we become old and susceptible to diseases because our cells lose youthful information. DNA stores information digitally, a robust format, whereas the epigenome stores it in analog format, and is therefore prone to the introduction of epigenetic "noise." An apt metaphor is a DVD player from the 1990s. The information is digital; the reader that moves around is analog. Aging is similar to the accumulation of scratches on the disc so the information can no longer be read correctly. Where's the polish?

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, Planck wrote shortly before his death in 1947, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.