IS BABYLON FIVE’S ANTI-AGAPIC HERE?
Most people know I am a fan of the 1990s classic sci-fi television series, Babylon Five.
In the first season of that series, a war criminal named Warmaster
Jha-dur (a leader of an extinct race named named the Dilgar which was
wiped out in a war) missing for years and presumed dead, suddenly turns
up on the space station to the horrified shock of the various races she
oppressed and murdered. She was a kind of alien Doctor Mengele,
performing horrible experiments on the sentient species that her own
species had conquered, until the Earth Alliance intervened and,
apparently, wiped out the Dilgar. With the exception of Jha-dur.Her
sudden appearance on the space station brings the predictable demands
for justice and a war crimes trial from the various races that were
victims of her experiments. Unfortunately, Jha-dur brings with her a
serum, a universal anti-agapic or anti-aging drug with which she hopes
to barter for her freedom. She offers it to Earth, which, of course,
promptly tosses morality and justice aside, and makes a deal with her
for the drug. Indeed, the drug appears to work, since Jha-dur has not
aged one day since the last known picture of her from years previously.
All DNA tests confirm: its her. Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately,
depending on ones lights), the ship carrying Jha-dur is blown up by
another advanced alien race (the Vorlons), who tell the humans that
youre not ready for immortality. So why the lengthy introduction? Well,
Mr. V.T. shared this article about a similar drug that is now being
tested by NASA; indeed, I blogged about this drug some time ago, which
was then in development. Now, it appears there has been enough success
with it in mice that it is now moving to human trials:
Would YOU choose to live forever? Age-reversing pill that Nasa wants to
give to astronauts on Mars will begin human trials within six months. Now this is extremely interesting, for note what is claimed for the drug:
Scientists have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing.The drug could help damaged DNA to miraculously repair and even protect Nasa astronauts on Mars by protecting them from solar radiation.A team of researchers developed the drug after discovering a key signalling process in DNA repair and cell ageing....The work has drawn the attention of Nasa, which is considering the challenge of keeping its astronauts healthy during a four-year mission to Mars.Even on short missions, astronauts experience accelerated ageing from cosmic radiation, suffering from muscle weakness, memory loss and other symptoms when they return.On a trip to Mars, the situation would be far worse: Five per cent of the astronauts cells would die and their chances of cancer would approach 100 per cent.(Emphasis added)
Let
that cluster of claims sink in: a drug that can accelerate
radiation-damaged cell repair, and hence, conceivably ward off
radiation-induced cancers. A few years ago, there was a story about an
Israeli developed drug which had similar restorative properties for
radiation-attacked cells. The bottom line here is that up to a point,
one might have a cure for radiation sickness and damaged cells, with the
possible high octane speculative potential of perhaps being able to undo severe radiation exposure,
such as the type caused by thermal neutrons to individual cells. One
would, of course, have to administer such a drug very quickly after such
exposure, before the damage had set in past the point of no return. But
it is just barely conceivable as a possibility.
The
benefits for extended space voyages, as the article points out, are
quite high, for one would be able to repair radiation exposure
as-it-happened so to speak, effectively neutralizing one persistent
problem with long space voyages.
Which brings me to my high octane speculation of the day: just how long might this technology have existed? In the Daily Mails
presentation, not very long at all; its relatively recent and just now
being set for human trials. But consider: we've often remarked on this
site about the weird longevity of the elite, and in part, this has been
explained by the process of taking blood transfusions of the very young.
The thinking is that some sort of genetic mechanism exists that repairs
cells. And this drug would certainly seem to fill the bill. And if one
had taken blood transfusions and noticed a marked improvement and
restoration of youth and vigor, one would want to know why, and
perhaps then privately and very secretly funded studies into what made
it work, and found the mechanism being claimed for this drug.
Far-fetched? Certainly, but it would not be the first time that public
technologies and disclosures of such followed a long period of private
and hidden development. And its incredibly interesting that it occurs in
connection with space travel (Apollo, anyone?).
Oh, and to complete the Babylon Five
version of the story, Jha-dur, in a final moment of supreme triumph,
discloses that her drug was made possible by the millions of lives she
sacrificed in her experiments, and that the drug only works because it
contains the dna of all those species... think of it as the Babylon Five
version of the blood transfusion story.
It makes you wonder...
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