Not 42 (or insert your own figure, mine is 58) but 15½ ::


New Scientist has an article (the whole thing is "premium content" but theypublishedd a teaser that was repeated in The Globe and Mail) titled "Your amazing regenerating body" (HT to the always stimulating collection at Mirabilis.

The writer Gaia Vince asked:

HERE'S a question: how old are you? Think carefully before you reply. It's a lot trickier than you might imagine. The correct answer, it turns out, is about 15 and a half. According to recent research, that's the average age of your body - your muscles and guts, anyway. You might think that you have been around since the day you were born, but most of your body is a lot younger.

The teaser also points out that there is an urban myth that "human body completely renews itself every seven years" it now seems we don't!

BUT 15½ is a whole lot better and younger than I'd feel this morning, even if I did not have a cold and a sleepless night. And that fact, that our bodies, the material stuff of us is not old, though we (or at least some of us) undoubtedly ARE, is one of the motives for my desire to consider and perhaps in the fullness of time write about the "Theology of Aging". Not "how to cope with aging" but what does aging mean in a theological context, what is the function of aging in a theological framework...
¶ 7:11 AM [to Del.icio.us]

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