An age-old question

RadioScope: There were times during Richard Hannaford's new four-part series Being Human when it seemed that the 30-minute format would burst at the seams - the topic being simply too vast to be contained in a mere two hours of radio.

During the series, which was scheduled during the least promising radio month of August when most people are more concerned with holidays, his brief was to look at Darwin's theory of adaptation and the development of the species. From there, the challenge was to explore how human beings have evolved physically, emotionally and intellectually and to consider what might be ahead.

By any standards, it's a Big Subject, but Hannaford has proven in previous RTÉ health documentaries, most notably The Truth about the Health Service, that he has the facility to communicate detail in an accessible way.

It started with Being Born, a look at how medical advances have affected conception and birth. Among the many locations visited was a sperm bank in the Netherlands whose customers come from all over Europe, including Ireland. Put most directly, he described it as a service that removes the need for the father to even be in the same country as the mother at the moment of conception.

The second programme, Being Physical, explored how our bodies are changing and developing - it was a timely programme, bang in the middle of the Olympics where athletes ran faster and jumped higher than anyone could have imagined 100 years ago. Being Aware explored our emotional and intellectual development and, inevitably, the growing convergence of bio-technology and nano-technology where computer implants are being explored as a way of boosting brain power or even taking over some of the brain's functions.

The final programme last week (Tuesday, August 24th), Not Being, looked at ageing and death and, in many ways, was the most thought provoking of the series. He introduced us to baby Chloe who, 200 years ago, could expect to live until she was 40. Now Chloe will most likely live to at least 80. He visited a lab in California where scientists have bred over 600 generations of fruit flies called Methusalah Flies - and the later generations with gene manipulation are able to live longer.

One scientist suggested that human ageing stops at 95 - if you can get over that milestone, you could theoretically live for years more. Tellingly, the visit to the fruit fly lab ended with the scientist admitting that drawing an analogy between what happens to the flies and what might happen in humans is "difficult".

"We age from the moment we are born," says Prof Des O'Neil. "Age is a continuous process, not a condition." Dr Lloyd from Trinity was even more sanguine. If we can survive the next 200 years, he suggested, the human race was good for another two million years. There is, however, a "shelf life" for all species. Eighty-four species, he said, had gone from the world in the last 400 years and there's no reason to expect that humans are going to be spared in a world that is constantly evolving.