• Question: Is it possible to prolong a life?

    Asked by Johann_Seidler to Joe, Jos, Kate, Lisa, Pierre on 8 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Pierre Lasorak

      Pierre Lasorak answered on 8 Nov 2014:

      Hello
      Since I am a particle scientist I will answer in a particle physics point of view.
      I don’t know if you know but the space is completely full of all sort of dust clouds flying around. Eventually the trajectory of the Earth around the Sun or event the trajectory of the solar system cross these clouds, and it results in a shower of particles on atmosphere. After interacting with the atmosphere, these particles coming from space create some other particles, called muons (and neutrino eventually). This result of this is a continuous shower of muons on the surface of the Earth. These muons cross us all the time, sometimes they interact and maybe it could be the cause of the ageing of our cells?
      I remember visiting a mine in Poland where they used to bring horses that would stay all their life down there. These horses used to live longer than the horses in the surface of the Earth! In the mine there is a very big shelter of rock that stops of the muons…
      Of course I am not telling you to live in a mine because you would miss some basic things like sun and D vitamins, interaction with people… And these are suppositions that are not at all tested, but I am not doctor!

    • Photo: Lisa Simmons

      Lisa Simmons answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      I love Pierre’s answer, and definitely couldn’t do any better. I like to think of life holistically, everything we do governs the quality of our life. The food we eat, the exercise we do all matter in prolonging our life span and ultimately it’s quality.

    • Photo: Kate Dobson

      Kate Dobson answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      I try and prolong my own by being healthy, doing excersise and avoiding the dangerous bits of volcano!

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