Senescence - Baba Brinkman

You got a body and I got a body and

When we get our bodies together mama, we partyin'

Reproducin' to keep it movin'

Doin' our bit for evolution

You got a body and I got a body and

They differ —

mine’ll probably fall apart quicker

I’m talkin' ten years not ten seconds

You and me baby, all the way to senescence

I just wanna be an aging B-Boy

Live long and prosper,

Leonard Nemoy

When it comes to longevity we’re killin' it

Life span longer than a Asian elephant

Chimps get jealous at us, their close relatives

We live like twenty years longer,

deal with it

If you look elsewhere though,

we’re dead frail

I want two hundred years like a bowhead whale!

Aging and senescence aren’t the same thing

Aging is time passing,

that’s a great thing

But senescence is bio-degrading

Sucks to be a mayfly on the day of mating

Time’s wasting,

evolution tracks it

Never puts all its eggs in one basket

Longer life is better when predators are scarce

‘Cause you can invest in care

But when the dangers of death surround you

Reproduce faster when hazards hound you

This is how our bodies got built

To achieve just one thing,

and it’s not health

You got a body and I got a body and

When we get our bodies together mama, we partyin'

Reproducin' to keep it movin'

Doin' our bit for evolution

You got a body and I got a body and

They differ —

mine’ll probably fall apart quicker

I’m talkin' ten years not ten seconds

You and me baby,

all the way to senescence

I love your body mama, it’s hella fine

Even if it’s kind of unintelligently designed

Even if it’s chock full of flaws,

you’re workin' it

Let’s be flawed together,

like other vertebrates

You’re hot,

even with your blind spot

Even with your optic nerve tryin' to block

Your retina,

that collection of blood vessels is odd

You’re hot,

but you’re no cephalopod

You’re flawed,

but I’m so flawed too

My throat is designed so I choke on food

The principle should be blatantly obvious

Don’t put the trachea in front of the esophagus!

You can see why that’s quite senseless

Passing every bite over your windpipe’s entrance

But these bodies never had a blueprint

Just generations and generations of evolution

Perfection of design,

that’s irrelevant

We take what we can from our past development

Even if it leaves us vulnerable

So here’s what I wanna do before we gotta go…

You got a body and I got a body and

When we get our bodies together mama, we partyin'

Reproducin' to keep it movin'

Doin' our bit for evolution

You got a body and I got a body and

They differ —

mine’ll probably fall apart quicker

I’m talkin' ten years not ten seconds

You and me baby,

all the way to senescence

Why don’t our bodies regenerate better?

And stretch out the lifespan like a tape measure?

Why would evolution let us deteriorate

And shape us into physically inferior apes?

In old age, pulmonary disease

Cancer, cardiovascular, diabetes

Neurodegeneration, heebie jeebies

Can I get some extra time if I eat my wheaties?

Or at least an explanation

That might help us one day to treat patients?

Here’s how George Williams might approach it

Genes are antagonistically pleiotropic

Their effects are quite various

Some are beneficial and some are deleterious

But if a mutation conveys a benefit

Early in life, but then messes up the rest of it

Helps an organism reproduce,

and later brings on the death of it,

natural selection will select for it

And that’s how senescence got built in

To our genome, now, speaking of children…

You got a body and I got a body and

When we get our bodies together mama, we partyin'

Reproducin' to keep it movin'

Doin' our bit for evolution

You got a body and I got a body and

They differ —

mine’ll probably fall apart quicker

I’m talkin' ten years not ten seconds

You and me baby, all the way to senescence