Living Longer

``Aging is not a friend: It is an imposition and should be vanquished without quarter,'' writes Segall, a physiology researcher at the University of California at Berkeley who believes we're on the brink of success in the matter. He is convinced that once techniques for cloning and cryonic suspension (otherwise known as freezing) are refined, growing old and dying will become unnecessary, not to mention unfashionable. The burgeoning number of the forever young will set off to populate the earth's wastelands, while ``blue-ribbon commissions composed of our finest minds''--some of these well into their second century--will rule on the ethical, environmental and economic dilemmas endemic to a society no longer limited by lifespan. Not all of Living Longer is so harebrained; Segall is right to point out that cloning could help remedy our desperate shortage of transplantable organs, while cryonics could revolutionize surgical procedure. But it is distressingly clear that the author considers such causes minor in his wooing of eternal youth. This frequently voiced conviction removes the book from the sphere of science, shelving it with supermarket tabloids. (Mar.)