A statistical analogy between collapse of solids and death of living organisms: Proposal for a 'law of life'

In this paper we present a statistical analogy between the collapse of solids and living organisms; in particular we deduce a statistical law governing their probability of death. We have derived such a taw coupling the widely used Weibult Statistics, developed for describing the distribution of the strength of solids, with a general model for ontogenetic growth recently proposed in literature. The main idea presented in this paper is that cracks can propagate in solids and cause their failure as sick cells in living organisms can cause their death. Making a rough analogy, living organisms are found to behave as growing mechanical components under cyclic, i.e., fatigue, loadings and composed by a dynamic evolutionary material that, as an ineluctable fate, deteriorates. The implications on biological scaling taws are discussed. As an example, we apply such a Dynamic Weibult Statistics to large data collections on human deaths due to cancer of various types recorded in Italy: a significant agreement is observed. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.