While the terrifying Dracula Is back in the cinema, since July 30, in an adaptation of Luc Besson, Futura wonders: would the body and the human brain be able to assume several centuries of life as the famous vampire?
The most famous vampire in cinema pronounces its cape and its fangs for a new adaptation of its legend under the direction of Luc Besson. Released in theaters on July 30, Dracula Imagine Prince Vladimir in the XVe century renouncing God after the loss of his wife. Condemned to eternal life, he porteporte His mourning over the centuries, looking in vain to find his lost love.
If a transformation into a blood lover who hates theailail is not to be desired for the ordinary of the mortals, a life expectancylife expectancy of 500 years on a leash, however, more than one …
Trailer Dracula, Luc Besson’s film. © Europacorp, Youtube
Towards a body capable of living up to 500 years?
According to a Yougov survey carried out a few years ago, 14.6 % of the French interviewed think that scientific progress will allow us to live up to five centuries. And research is not far from reasoning.
In California, researchers from Buck Institute for Research on Aging managed to multiply by five life expectancy of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. This by blocking the molecules which affect the action of theinsulininsulin And the MTOR enzyme that regulates growth, mobility and cell survival. Adapted to humans, these modifications geneticsgenetics could therefore allow him to reach 500 years. Besides, if we look in retro, life expectancy has already been multiplied by three since the 18the century.
Some millionaires have started their transhumanist transition to great reinforcementreinforcement food supplements and strict diets. And advances in medicine, the development of genomicgenomictherapeutic cloning, brain implants or nanotechnologiesnanotechnologies tend to constantly repel the age of death.
The brain, an inexhaustible storage space?
If nothing prevents us today from thinking that a lifespan of 500 years could end up becoming an attainable for the body, what about our brain? Could this one contain five centuries of knowledge and memories?
Based on the number of neuronesneuronesof synapsessynapses and their storage capacities, researchers have calculated that the brainbrain Human could contain 2.5 petacts of memory. Or, more than 2.5 million gigas! Or the equivalent of 5,000 iPhoneiPhone Pro.
Professor of psychology at the Northwestern university in the United States, Paul Reber estimates that this corresponds to three million hours of content and that the television will be on continuously on for more than 300 years to overcome the capacities of this storage space.
Knowing that the brain “crushes” most memories to make room for others (it is estimated that we forget almost 40 % of information 20 minutes after hearing it and that 77 % of memories are erased after six days), it would indeed be possible for the brain to store 500 years of memories and to keep some, like that of a loved one, intact.
But is it desirable? The quest for immortality is a recurring subject in the history of humanity and very often explored by science fiction works. We have analyzed it through the last season of Black Mirror Or, with the film Fountain of Youth If only the most recent. Desirable, fascinating, the facts and the stories – including that which Luke Besson tells us – are nevertheless there to remind us that this quest can be a curse. Because does the beauty of life not hold in its ephemeral character?
