Spring Chicken

Stay Young Forever (or Die Trying)

Bill Gifford

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780748528
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

We've been tantalised by the idea of eternal youth since time immemorial. We're always asking how we can live longer, and better. Or, to put it another way, why can't we all be like Madame Calment who cycled till she was 100, smoked till she was 117 and died at the wonderfully old age of 122?Join veteran reporter Bill Gifford for a rip-roaring ride along the trail to the fountain of youth. Meet the scientists who have doubled the life-expectancy of mice by knocking out a single gene, and others like Aubrey de Grey, who claims that we are on the cusp of achieving 'longevity escape velocity', and who predicts that our children could live for a thousand years. An intoxicating mixture of deep reporting, fascinating science and sound advice, Spring Chicken will reveal the extraordinary breakthroughs that may yet bring us eternal youth, while exposing the dangerous deceptions that prey on the innocent and ignorant.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Prologue: The Elixir
• Chapter 1. Brothers
• Chapter 2. The Age of Ageing
• Chapter 3. The Fountain of Youthiness
• Chapter 4. Yours Sincerely, Wasting Away
• Chapter 5. How to Live to 108 Without Really Trying
• Chapter 6. The Heart of the Problem
• Chapter 7. Baldness as Metaphor
• Chapter 8. The Lives of Our Cells
• Chapter 9. Phil vs. Fat
• Chapter 10. Pole Vaulting into Eternity
• Chapter 11. Starving for Immortality
• Chapter 12. What Doesn’t Kill You
• Chapter 13. Fast Forward
• Chapter 14. Who Moved My Keys?
• Epilogue: The Death of Death
• Appendix: Things That Might Work
• Acknowledgments
• Notes & Sources
• Further Reading
• Index