"In 20 years human beings will neither die nor age."
That's Shukan Gendai magazine's headline. Is it possible? Is the age-old dream about to come true? Are homo sapiens, who have been dying for 190,000-odd years, on the cusp at last of immortality?
Myriad champions down the millennia have waged their battles against Death. The first known one is Gilgamesh, of the 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian epic that bears his name. Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, journeys to a distant land where dwells the world's only immortal man — who is willing to help, on one condition: Gilgamesh must stay awake for a week. He fails, and earns a stinging rebuke: "Behold this fellow who seeks eternal life! Sleep swirls over him like a mist."