life in Biology and Theater

Being a Biochemistry major, I always like when art and science are combined.

I recently discovered Photographer Rachel Sussman's project to take pictures of the worlds oldest living organisms:

http://rachelsussman.com/portfolios/OLTW/main.html

This is the oldest living thing, a 500,000 year old colony of bacteria frozen in Siberia, that is still actively repairing its DNA:


All the organisms photographed have managed to survive so long largely because they live in extremely stable environments where there is no risk of nutrient shortages, dangerous weather, or predation. The trade off is that they grow at an exceedingly slow rate, and reproduce very infrequently.

What about art? ancient Greek drama was able to survive well over a thousand years as an unchanging, unperformed art form in Europe, but as soon as it reached the unstable environment of renaissance Italy, it quickly mutated into opera, which was initially supposed to be an attempt to "defrost" the ancient plays. So in the same way, there was a trade off between lifespan and rate of evolution.