Word: humanization
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...protecting Palestinians in the occupied territories. In a report ordered by the council after 20 Arabs were killed by Israeli forces on Jerusalem's Temple Mount last month, Perez de Cuellar suggested the 164 nations that signed the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention convene to discuss ways to prevent human-rights violations in the territories, including the designation of a "protecting power" for the Palestinians...
Most everybody wants to live as long as possible. And given the enormous strides made in medicine and the health sciences during the past 150 years, people could be forgiven for hoping that someday human beings will live, if not quite forever, at least far longer than at present. Since the mid-19th century, average life expectancy at birth has nearly doubled: from 40 years to 75. Today many people live past 100, and the oldest individuals have reached either 115 or 120, depending on whom you believe...
...comes as something of a jolt to be told by the experts that human beings have taken life about as far as it can go. That is the sobering conclusion of a report in Science magazine last week by demographer S. Jay Olshansky and gerontologist Christine Cassel of the University of Chicago and biostatistician Bruce Carnes of Argonne National Laboratory. Barring an unexpected breakthrough in basic science that would forestall the aging process, they say, the era of rapid increases in human longevity has come to an end -- at least in developed countries. Even if science could eliminate heart disease...
...There seems to be a kind of built-in biological limit programmed into the cells of the human body. In laboratory experiments, human cells divide only about 50 times before they begin to fall apart like old jalopies. This planned obsolescence on nature's part makes a certain amount of evolutionary sense. Survival of the fittest, after all, rewards only those who reproduce, not necessarily those who reach old age. Once procreation is over, human bodies may as well be disposable goods, biologically speaking...
...best way to combat cellular aging is to postpone its effects at the molecular level. Basic research is now under way to understand the mechanisms that make human cells wear out and to try to find the genes that cause the major degenerative diseases of old age -- arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease. This work could have a double benefit: extending life expectancy and helping to make those extra years worth living. But researchers have no idea when, or if, breakthroughs will take place...