Postponing That Good Night

“If this paper is right," says gerontology and cancer researcher Norman Sharpless of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, "I believe it will be one of the most important aging papers ever.” No kidding. He is referring to a new study, conducted in mice, that seems to show that removing their "senescent," or worn-out, cells helped them live longer and healthier lives. As we age, cells start to lose their ability to divide and operate as usual. Instead, they start making trouble that may in fact hasten aging. So, obviously, getting rid of them makes sense ... except (and there's almost always an "except") where wound-healing is concerned: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/removing-worn-out-cells-makes-mice-live-longer-and-prosper
   The title of this post references an amazing poem by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953; after whom one Robert Allen Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan, renamed himself, btw), Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Here it is (and know this, that you can hear the poet himself reading it, followed, for good measure, by the inimitable Richard Burton reading it, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mRec3VbH3w):

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on it way,
Do no go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.