THE BIG QUESTION

The producers at the Paley conference indicated that they wanted to finish the show with the big question, "what is life?" How the sideways world ending answer that question in itself is clouded in mysterious contradictions.

For science is trying really, really hard to answer that question.

Before her death in 2005, Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper of the Netherlands was the oldest woman alive. She lived to be 115 and three months old.
Surprisingly though,  CNN reports that when she died, her brain was still in good shape - no sign of Alzheimer's or other diseases typically associated with old age.
Scientists wanted to know her cause of death, and by implication how she lived so long. They now say it might have to do with dying stem cells.
Scientists at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam say at the time of van Andel-Schipper's death, she had just two blood stem cells.  
Blood stem cells are what your body uses to replenish your blood. Humans are typically born with around 20,000 of these cells, and on average about 1,000 work to keep your bloodstream pumping.
But this study suggests over time our stem cells weaken and die out, which might actually limit the ability of your stem cells to replenish your tissues.
"Once the stem cells reach a state of exhaustion that imposes a limit on their own lifespan, they themselves gradually die out and steadily diminish the body's capacity to keep regenerating vital tissues and cells, such as blood," the study states.
Although it's not known for sure whether van Andel-Schipper died because of this exhaustion, this study does reveal her white blood cells were mutated, leading scientists to wonder if some genetic mutations are actually harmless.
The scientific community will debate whether it could mean that  "Genetic mutations may hold the key to a long life."
The researchers, whose findings were published in the journal Genome Research, say more studies are needed to investigate whether dying stem cells can cause death at extreme ages.

Likewise, medical science still does not know why certain people get cancer (the mutation of cells which destroy vital cells and organs) and other people with the same environmental factors do not. The human body is a complex bio-chemical-electric factory of inter-related factors which creates a living human being. 

At some point, medical science will try to inject substitute blood stem cells into patients to see if that treatment can prolong their lives. Immortality is something that human beings have dreamed about for ages, since the fear of death (and its unknown) has been culturally significant throughout history.