Focus: End of life
Death and the researcher From philosophy to biology and materials research: far beyond the bounds of medicine, the human and natural sciences are engaging with the end of life. By Roland Fischer (rf) and Luzia Budmiger (lb). Illustration: Christoph Frei
What we lose with death For good reason, the death of loved ones makes us unhappy to the point of despair. But what about the prospect of our own death? It’s not always irrational for it to make us feel regret, says the philosopher Federico Lauria of the University of Geneva. In his research project ‘Death and powers’ he has developed his own approach to this thesis. His inspiration comes from the interdisciplinary ‘Immortality project’ currently running at the University of California. Death robs us of the ability to enjoy the benefits of life, says Lauria. This is why we have good reason to approach it with a sense of sadness. Lauria’s research aims at justifying our feeling of sadness when faced with the prospect of our own death. But it also offers us a perspective based on the other side of the argument: would it be irrational to wish ourselves immortal instead? lb
Rapid rot Our interaction with dying does not end at death. Human pathologists try to prevent the decay of the body for as long as possible, but Francis Schwarze, a tree pathologist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA), is using his expert knowledge to accelerate the process of decay. Early on in his research career he was employed to give expert opinions on the state of trees in cities, especially with regard to fungal diseases. For a good ten years now he has been putting his knowledge to good use in a start-up company that has created a quite special fungal mixture. When applied to coffins, they pass over considerably quicker into the heavenly forests (and take their corpses with them). rf
Learning from cell death Our bodies dispose of billions of cells every day. In order for this process to function properly, the cells are inscribed with a kind of ‘suicide program’ that can be triggered by signals from either inside or out. This ‘apoptosis’ is found in both complex and simple organisms. The molecular, biological fundamentals are astonishingly similar in each case, says Michael Hengartner of the University of Zurich. In order to understand the process better in humans, his group is investigating apoptosis in the threadworm C. elegans. How exactly does a cell ‘notice’ that it is irrecoverably lost – perhaps because its DNA is damaged? And what signalling pathways lead to its death and elimination by its neighbouring cells? Medical researchers are also interested in the precise processes in these model organisms. They would like to boost apoptosis in cases of cancer, but inhibit it during a stroke. rf
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Swiss National Science Foundation – Swiss Academies: Horizons No. 112
Unequal to the grave Today, most of us die in old age. This makes us all the same before death: fragile. At least, that’s the common opinion. But this homogeneous image of death is being debunked by Marthe Nicolet, a sociologist at the Interfaculty Centre of Gerontology at the University of Geneva. Her work is benefitting from her current visit to the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) in Paris. Using obituary notices from Switzerland, she is investigating people’s environment at the end of their life – their families, economic situations and medical care. The words of thanks penned by the next of kin are especially revealing: our last phase of life is marked by inequalities. Nicolet’s doctoral thesis ‘Annoncer la mort’ (‘announcing death’) focuses our gaze not just on how we die, but on how we age. And she shows us the society in which we live today. lb
The urn supplants the coffin Even dying does not stop the march of modernity. Thirty years ago, only few people were cremated in Taiwan, but today it is one of the countries with the highest proportion of cremations in the world. Not even ten percent of the deceased are buried there anymore. This shift has also been driven by the state authorities, whose reasons are founded in land-use planning and economics. Taiwan is simply following a global trend. But this cultural paradigm shift in funerary practices also displays regional variations, as the religious scholar Urs Weber has found in his extensive field research and conversations with authorities, funeral homes and those responsible for the ritual aspects of death. It’s not just a result of secular upheaval, but also of religious changes. Buddhists prefer cremation, and since the 1980s they have quintupled their numbers as a proportion of the residential population. rf
Dead poets’ dialogue Reading is a kind of silent dialogue with the author. In libraries, we find the voices of authors from all periods of history, gathered in a single space. You could imagine them as a kind of society of dead poets and thinkers. Such ideas are found throughout the history of literature, as the classical philologist Rebecca Lämmle explains: time and again, writers conjure up underworlds in which long-dead authors speak again, talk to each other, or answer the questions of the living. Such dialogues between the great figures of different epochs offer Lämmle an alternative form of writing literary history. When the poets and thinkers of the past become alive again, they negotiate tradition and innovation in a dialogue across the ages. rf
The fingerprint of putrefaction When a corpse decomposes in nature, a kind of microbial oasis is established in that spot and remains there for several years. A dead body means new life – that’s a biological truism. But the actual variety of this new life was a surprise to the soil ecologist Edward Mitchell from the University of Neuchâtel: “In such spots, we find a highly characteristic population of microorganisms. These include very rare species, and even species we’ve never encountered before”. And it’s not just biologists who are interested in this ‘fingerprint’ left by a body in the soil. Forensic experts are also keen to know more. Analysing these microorganisms promises to complement the insect analysis that is already a standard practice in criminal cases. Mitchell’s group is working on this, too. “It’s just a matter of time before this method has become established in the courtroom”, he says. rf
Dying? No thanks. Freshwater polyps might be tiny and inconspicuous, but they bear a series of astonishing characteristics. Some researchers even believe that they are immortal. Brigitte Galliot of the University of Geneva is more circumspect in how she puts it. Under ideal circumstances, you see almost no ageing process in these rod-shaped little creatures. How they manage this has not yet been fully explained. Galliot’s laboratory is investigating the role of their stem cells in particular, which can restore any part of the body at will. When placed under stress, these polyps shift from asexual to sexual reproduction, and thereby lose much of their stem cell magic. Does this fact perhaps conceal a basic principle of ageing? Galliot’s group hopes that their work will help us to better understand our own ageing process. rf Roland Fischer is a science journalist. Luzia Budmiger is an editor at the Swiss Academies of Arts and Science.
Swiss National Science Foundation – Swiss Academies: Horizons No. 112
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