Swim Week has officially arrived, and we all know what that means -- hoards of perfectly toned women strutting half-naked down the catwalk just enough times to make women across the city seek out their own personal fountain of youth.
But what if age really is just a number? According to the theories explored in Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality -- the newest tome by scientist and Pulitzer-Prize winning author and scientist Jonathan Weiner -- this isn't out of the question.
"If you look at life expectancy in the 1900s in the country, it was only about 47 years," Weiner said during a reading at Books & Books Wednesday night. "Life expectancy at the end of the 20th century had grown about 30 years."
While Weiner said some of the immortalists cited in his book vow that even more years will be added to life spans in the future, others -- including his primary subject, scientist Aubrey de Grey, believe we can wipe out the whole getting older thing all together.
"He [de Grey] is arguing you yourself have a chance to live 1,000 years or 10,000 years or even perhaps a million years," he said. "If you encounter a scientist like that, you don't have to be a science writer to be instantaneously skeptical."
He added, "I felt when I met Aubrey, that he had presented me with the perfect character and storyline that I would follow his campaign to wake the world up to the possibilities that we now know enough to cure aging, or that we will very, very soon, within out lifetime, know enough to conquer aging and death."
Until then, the women of Miami will have to live vicariously through all of those swimsuit models.
