Those hoping to enhance their longevity may want to look to gingko biloba, a plant sometimes considered a “living fossil” thanks to its ability to survive conditions that would otherwise kill or dramatically shorten the lifespan of most other species
There is a thread of biological immortality woven into all living things. Anything that breathes or pulsates with life holds a germline of genetic information that originated from a last universal common ancestor (LUCA), and from which all living things—plants, bacteria, fungi, and animal included—descended about 3.4 billion years ago. While somatic cells within multicellular organisms perish, their germline stem cells are capable of infinite self-replication, which in the case of gingko biloba’s meristematic stem cells, has been going on for at least a quarter of a billion years.
