Re: Writing from the POV of older people than one's self

Cyli <cylise@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:33:44 GMT, weyand@xxxxxxx (Rich Weyand) wrote:

In article <IxIyH8.IIw@xxxxxxxxxxx>, whheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx (Wilson Heydt)
wrote:

Dig deeper for it, then. I've alreayd seen reports of work on
artificial retinas, and cochlear implants are almost to the point of
being routine.

OK, pick something else. The live can't be rejuved or transplanted. The
loss
of short-term memory can't be fixed. The loss of bone calcium. Whatever.

Point being, what would the implications of a non-uniform progress in rejuv
tech be? Would you be able to keep alive a whole generation of people for 30
or 50 or 75 years until the tech caught up, but who were then dependent
on....?... in the meantime?

Rich Weyand
Working title "Message Received" complete
WIP: untitled sequel


Ovulation. Niven has an error in his "World out of Time" where the
woman is planning, if necessary, to be the Eve of the new society.
Both she and the hero fail to remember that the ova a woman has are of
finite numbers and tend to run out (hence menopause) at somewhere in
normal middle age. Which the woman in question passed somewhere
between centuries and millennia before. There is nothing in the novel

I agree it's an error - but only because it was believed when Niven
wrote it. Blish has a similar error in his _Cities in Flight_ books.

But it's as wrong as the idea that the brain is unable to grow new
neurons. I read recently that some kinds of stem cells migrate to the
ovaries, and appear capable of developing into ova (in animals - not
yet observed in humans, but only because it's not yet been looked for
in humans - just as many human object to having bits of their brain
extracted to test for growth of new neurons ...).

So it suggests that cause-and-effect are the other way around: women
don't have the menopause because they run out of eggs: they run out
of eggs because they go through the menopause.

Similarly but conversely, Alzheimer's is not a natural consequence
of ageing: it's a *disease*. A very nasty and distressing one. Whether
it's a genetic disease, or triggered by some environmental effect
(including pathogens) or some combination of various factors, not enough
is yet known to answer it.

Jonathan
.

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